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18 Replies Last post: Sep 30, 2008 2:43 PM by coastie65 1 2 Previous Next

coastie65

4,083 posts since
Apr 2, 2007

May 5, 2008 4:07 PM

New Destructive Virus discovered With No cure as yet

Hi All, Just received this in my mail from my Sister. This was sent to all the employees at Verizon. It looks to be pretty serious. This has been confirmed by Norton, McAfee, and Snopes.

" You should be alert during the next few days. Do not open any message with an attachment entitled 'POSTCARD', regardless of who sent it to you. It is a virus which opens *A POSTCARD IMAGE, *which 'burns' the whole hard disk C of your computer. This virus will be received from someone who has your e-mail address in his/her contact list. For this reason, you need to send this e-mail to all your contacts. It is better to receive this message 25 times than to receive the virus and open it. If you receive an e-mail called *'POSTCARD' *, even though sent to you by a friend, *DO NOT OPEN IT *! Shut your computer down immediately. This is the worst virus announced by CNN. It is classified by Micro$oft as the most destructive virus ever. The virus was discovered by McAfee yesterday, and there is no repair yet for this kind of virus. This virus simply destroys the Zero sector of the HDD, where the information is kept." I don't think this is a hoax, but it seems as this has come up before, so take it with a grain of salt, but be careful. coastie65

eMachines T5212.... Intel Pentium D 945 3.4Ghz..... evga 8600 GT 256 Mb PCI-E video card..... Realtec HD audio......2 Gb 533 Mhz DDR2 memory..... Lite on CD RW; DVD +R / RW DL optical drive...... Windows XP MCE 2005....... Antec Basiq 500w PSU......200 Gb PATA HDD

Flashorn

1,648 posts since
May 19, 2007

1. May 5, 2008 1:42 PM

in response to: coastie65

Re: New Destructive Virus discovered With No cure as yet

Hey coastie!!

I GOT that specific e-mail. It was sent to me by unknown party and fortunately Gmail's spam filter caught it.

I always review my spam box just in case a good one slipped through.

In this case gmail was right.

Along with the PostCard there were others of the same nature.

Something about BirthDay Cards and one other that stuck out

about a vacation of somekind.

I deleted the hole spam folder and the PC did not seem to have suffered any ill

effects from this.

For the next week or so, I will Sandbox My e-mail client just to make sure that nothing gets to my hard drive.

Thanks for this info. coastie.It sure helps to be well informed.

FLASHORN.

Patience is life.

coastie65

4,083 posts since
Apr 2, 2007

2. May 5, 2008 2:13 PM

in response to: Flashorn

Re: New Destructive Virus discovered With No cure as yet

Hey flashorn, I just converted this thing to a document, but I guess I screwed up as this thread is still here. Oh well, I guess a little redundancy won't hurt. I exspect if there is anything to it, PCWorld will have something shortly. If so, remember you heard it here first.

coastie

Flashorn

1,648 posts since
May 19, 2007

3. May 5, 2008 2:33 PM

in response to: coastie65

Re: New Destructive Virus discovered With No cure as yet

Hey coastie!!

You didn't screw up!

The tread stays but , we also have the option of "Ranting" on your DOC. also!!LOL!!

FLashorn.

Patience is life.

Evildave

468 posts since
Jan 24, 2008

4. May 5, 2008 2:48 PM

in response to: Flashorn

Re: New Destructive Virus discovered With No cure as yet

Well aww shucks. Pesky Windows incompatibility won't let me 'catch' that virus. Such a shame I run Linux.

mcbarker

731 posts since
Aug 10, 2006

5. May 5, 2008 2:48 PM

in response to: coastie65

Re: New Destructive Virus discovered With No cure as yet

Hey, I thought April 1st was over...

http://forums.pcworld.com/servlet/JiveServlet/downloadImage/3613/gotcha.gif

Old Scottish Saying: A deaf man will hear the clink o’ money.

coastie65

4,083 posts since
Apr 2, 2007

6. May 5, 2008 3:10 PM

in response to: Flashorn

Re: New Destructive Virus discovered With No cure as yet

Hey flashorn, Yep, suppose so, guess you could call that convience.

http://forums.pcworld.com/servlet/JiveServlet/downloadImage/3614/giggle.gif

Took a bit of a break and revamped my security. I wasn't real happy with AVG 8.0 so switched to Avast as well as added SUPERantispyware for some redundancy.

Hey mcb, I don't know if it is for real or not, but it seems to be, and a lot of people are taking it serious and it seems to be backed up by the sources mentioned. coastie

mcbarker

731 posts since
Aug 10, 2006

7. May 5, 2008 3:22 PM

in response to: coastie65

Re: New Destructive Virus discovered With No cure as yet

Hey Coastie... It's an urban legend that's been around since last summer. Google it and see for yourself, or go to THIS SITE for a description of it.

Old Scottish Saying: A deaf man will hear the clink o’ money.

coastie65

4,083 posts since
Apr 2, 2007

8. May 5, 2008 3:29 PM

in response to: Evildave

Re: New Destructive Virus discovered With No cure as yet

Hey evildave, Yeah you guys running Linux miss out on all the excitement.

coastie

coastie65

4,083 posts since
Apr 2, 2007

9. May 5, 2008 3:57 PM

in response to: mcbarker

Re: New Destructive Virus discovered With No cure as yet

Hey mcb, May well be as it seemed awful familiar and I do seem to remember something like that sometime back. That thing came from my Sister and was sent out on the Verizon interoffice e-mail to all and she just forwarded it to me. I put it up as a precaution because who knows what may be lurking out there. I have and had one problem with the whole scenario. It supposedly comes from someone on your contact list. Well, just how would the malicious so and so know who was on my contact list? I have a little problem trying to reconcile that, and as I said, it seems as if I had heard of that sometime before and you confirmed that it had come up in the past. I also got an alert from my sister at that time as well, as I recall, and as I also recall, it was said that there was no fix then either. The only thing I've noticed of late is an upswing in Phishers. coastie

mphenterprises

9,120 posts since
Feb 19, 2007

10. May 5, 2008 4:18 PM

in response to: coastie65

Re: New Destructive Virus discovered With No cure as yet

Hi Coastie. Very good information. Thank you very much for sharing. Just a heads up. I edited your Document to remove the dialog. Similar viruses have surfaced over the years, Snoopy, I Love You, etc.

We are lucky. At least we have the tools and knowledge to correct any issue that comes our way.

Thanks again.

This is my personal Dream PC: http://forums.pcworld.com/blogs/mphenterprises/2007/12/21/my-gift-to-myself

coastie65

4,083 posts since
Apr 2, 2007

11. May 5, 2008 4:43 PM

in response to: mphenterprises

Re: New Destructive Virus discovered With No cure as yet

Hey mph, Thanks. I put it out there just in case, but not really sure how much substance is there though. I guess better safe than sorry, but then again, I would hate to perpetuate a myth. coastie

Rabbit

28 posts since
Aug 17, 2006

12. May 5, 2008 5:03 PM

in response to: coastie65

Re: New Destructive Virus discovered With No cure as yet

*Hi Coastie - Rabbit here. The very best URL to keep on tap (create a Desktop Shortcut) is *http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/HBHoaxIndex.html (click link) opens to Malicious Code Warnings. In the right column, click on the last item "Olympic Torch Virus HOAX" - here is the text from the webpage:

Olympic Torch Virus Hoax

June 2006

This message is a mixture of several other virus hoax warnings; none of them real.

<dl><dd> Warning READ AS SOON AS POSSIBLE Get this sent around to your contacts ASAP...we don't need this spreading around..... PLEASE FORWARD THIS WARNING AMONG FRIENDS, FAMILY AND CONTACTS: You should be alert during the next days: Do not open any message with an attached filed called "Invitation" regardless of who sent it, It is a virus that opens an Olympic Torch which "burns" the whole hard disc C of your computer. This virus will be received from someone who has your e-mail address in his/her contact list, that is why you should send this e-mail to all your contacts. It is better to receive this message 25 times than to receive the virus and open it. If you receive a mail called "invitation", though sent by a friend,do not open it and shut down your computer immediately. This is the worst virus announced by CNN, it has been classified by Microsoft as the most destructive virus ever. This virus was discovered by McAfee yesterday, and there is no repair yet for this kind of virus. This virus simply destroys the Zero Sector of the Hard Disc, where the vital information is kept. SEND THIS E-MAIL TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW, COPY THIS E-MAIL AND SEND! IT TO YOUR FRIENDS AND REMEMBER: IF YOU SEND IT TO THEM, YOU WILL BENEFIT ALL OF US. </dd><dd>*The one that includes the POSTCARD is a variation of this same HOAX.*</dd><dd>*Rabbit* </dd></dl>

Walter Ivey

piyushsingh

2,517 posts since
Jul 21, 2007

13. May 5, 2008 6:02 PM

in response to: coastie65

Re: New Destructive Virus discovered With No cure as yet

thanx for the info coastie.
I checked all my mails , couldnt get any glimpse of this thing. Maybe i ve deleted it as i regularly empty the junk/spam folder or maybe that pest is still on the way.

Nothing is true , Everything is permitted.

coastie65

4,083 posts since
Apr 2, 2007

14. May 5, 2008 6:07 PM

in response to: Rabbit

Re: New Destructive Virus discovered With No cure as yet

Hey Rabbit, Yeah, there certain things about that I had some problems with, not the least of which was the fact that I thought I seen before some time back. This thing got sent out on Verizon's interoffice e-mail to all employees, and then my sister sent the thing to me. I thought that she had sent virtually the same thing last year sometime. Geez, I thought they had worn that stuff out with the Y2K bug, but I guess not. coastie

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May 5, 2008 4:07 PM

New Destructive Virus discovered With No cure as yet

Olympic Torch Virus Hoax

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