Hoax email viruses and FTGZG-L

On Tuesday, August 19, 1997 12:17 PM, Sprayform
> [SMTP:sprayform.dev@netwales.co.uk] wrote:

Understood that it was in good faith - but these warnings actually
are the attack of a hoax virus and propogate them, thats the only reason for
my rapid comments to try and stop the propogation. I apologise for criticising
the warning given the circumstances.

In addition you make a point next which may have some bearing as some of the
latest hoaxes have had follow up trojan horse programs with a similar MO.

> As for infection it depends if an encripted attached is with the
Its quite easy for anyone to send a malicious program as a MIME attachment.
You can write a unix or NT script that will delete most of a drives contents
in a few lines.

Some of the latest hoaxes have had followup attachment trojans with the same
name or subject line that do this sort of thing

But the attachment has to be run to be a threat, just opening mail won't run
it (BEWARE double clicking on the attachment icon in a mailer like MS
Outlook could) although some programs may auto-decode (like Outlook) I
strongly suggest any way that you have your mailer auto-run an
attachment is disabled NOW.

Don't run any email attachment unless its from a reputable
source - and don't forget they are not allowed on this list
anyway, always treat them with suspicion. Some malicious person may indeed
subscribe and send such an attack, who knows?

caveat emptor

sincerely