How to Spot a Virus Hoax

Part 6. Penpal

(Whole UNIX servers are being destroyed)

Let's look at one more hoax. "Penpal appeared around the same time Deeyenda did.

The hoax message reads:

If anyone receives mail entitled: PENPAL GREETINGS! please delete it 
WITHOUT reading it. Below is a little explanation of the message, and 
what it would do to your PC if you were to read the message. If you 
have any questions  or concerns please contact [name and number 
removed].

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!

This virus will DESTROY your hard drive, and holds the potential to 
DESTROY the hard drive of anyone whose mail is in your inbox, and 
who's mail is in their inbox, and so on. If this virus remains 
unchecked, it has the potential to do a great deal of DAMAGE to 
computer networks worldwide!!!!

Please, delete the message entitled "PENPAL GREETINGS!" as soon as you 
see it! And pass this message along to all of your friends and 
relatives, and the other readers of the newsgroups and mailing lists 
which you are on, so that they are not hurt by this dangerous virus!!!!

It changes the subject field of your E-mail to "Penpal Greeting". As 
long as you don't read the message, it's OK. But once you read the 
message, it destroys your Boot Sector, copies itself and forwards new 
messages to all the people in your mailbox!!!! Just delete the message 
before you open it. Deleting it won't do any harm to the computer. 
Don't ask me how this is done with E-mail text but the news are 
spreading in France and whole UNIX servers are being destroyed!!! The 
virus is of type "Trojan Horse" and you can't detect it . So beware 
and keep your eyes wide open from now till the year 2000. It's a 
matter of time until the virus gets routed to you through one of 
your friends.

Rule of thumb: Always check the subject field and don't read unknown
messages.

Please forward this E-mail to all your friends, professors, staff, and 
print a hard copy (or a couple dozens) and post them on campus.