Hoaxes On The Internet

8. Penpals - Hoax

Summary
Typical Letter Contents
Support/Verification

Summary
Email with a subject of PENPALS contain dangerous, self-replicating viruses which will do nasty things to you and your friends, but only if you open them.

Typical Letter Contents

WARNING!!!!!!!

If you receive an e-mail titiled..JOIN THE CREW... /for PENPALS DO NOT open it!!!!! It will erase EVERYTHING on your hard drive!
Send this letter out to as many people as you can....this is a new virus and not many people know about it!!
This information was received this morning by IBM, Please share it with anyone that might access the internet!!! PENPAL appears to be a friendly letter asking you if you are interested in a penpal.....but by the time you read this letter it is TOO late.
The Trojan horse virus will have already infected the boot sector of your harddrive, destroying all the data present. It is a self-replicating virus, and once the message is read it will AUTOMATICALLY forward itself to anyone who's e-mail address is present in your box!!!
This virus will destroy your hard drive and holds the potential to DESTROY the hard drive of anyone whose mail is in your box and whose mail is in their box and so on and on!!!!!!
So delete any message titled PENPAL or JOIN THE CREW.......this virus can do major DAMAGE to worldwide networks!!!! PLEASE PASS THIS ALONG TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS AND PEOPLE IN YOUR MAILBOXES.........

AOL..... HAS SAID THIS IS A VERY DANGEROUS VIRUS AND THERE IS NO REMEDY FOR THIS........ FORWARD IT TO ALL YOUR ON-LINE FRIENDS...............A.S.A.P.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Support/Verification

Here's what I did:

  1. I went to the Symantec Antivirus Research Center (SARC) at http:www.symantec.com/avcenter
  2. I clicked the "Virus Hoaxes" button on the left.
  3. I clicked Penpal Greetings and came up with the text below.

Penpal Greetings
Aliases: E-mail, Good Times.Penpal_Greetings
Infection length: Hoax
Area of infection: Hoax
Likelihood: Hoax
Region reported: Worldwide
Characteristics: Hoax
Target platform: Hoax
Trigger date: Hoax

Description:
Penpal Greetings is not a virus. It is a hoax. The "virus" does not exist. There is currently no virus that has the characteristics ascribed to Penpal Greetings.

The e-mail message describing the virus is similar to the original Good Times virus e-mail hoax. It could even be described as a virus hoax strain.

The Penpal Greetings hoax message includes the following "warning":

This is a warning for all internet users - there is a dangerous virus propagating across the internet through an e-mail message entitled "PENPAL GREETINGS!" DO NOT DOWNLOAD ANY MESSAGE ENTITLED "PENPAL GREETINGS!"
This message appears to be a friendly letter asking you if you are interested in a penpal, but by the time you read this letter, it is too late. The "trojan horse" virus will have already infected the boot sector of your hard drive, destroying all of the data present. It is a self-replicating virus, and once the message is read, it will AUTOMATICALLY forward itself to anyone who's e-mail address is present in YOUR mailbox!

Please ignore any messages regarding this supposed "virus" and do not pass on any messages regarding it. Passing on messages about this hoax serves only to further propagate it.

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