A Virus Alert Hoax Revealed

READ IMMEDIATELY AND PASS ON TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW

Someone is sending out a very cute screensaver of the Budweiser Frogs.
If you download it, you will lose everything! Your hard drive will crash
and someone from the Internet will get your screen name and password!

DO NOT DOWNLOAD IT UNDER  ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!

It just went into circulation yesterday. Please distribute this message.
This is a new, very malicious virus and not many people know about
it. This information was announced yesterday morning from Microsoft.
Please share it with everyone that might access the Internet.

Once again, Pass This Along To EVERYONE in your address book so that this
may be stopped. AOL has said that this is a very dangerous virus and that
there is NO remedy for it.

This is VERY important. If you receive a screen saver from a friend or
anyone you may not know with the Budweiser Frogs in it, DO NOT DOWNLOAD IT
OR OPEN THE FILE!

Press the forward button on your email program and send this notice to EVERYONE
you know. Let's keep our email safe for everyone.

#1: “...you will lose everything! Your hard drive will crash and someone from the Internet will get your screen name and password!”

That is just not possible after your hard drive crashes.  Besides, the only time they would be able to get any password for anything to do with the Internet off your machine is:

You have saved it in a file somewhere that they can get to;

They have tapped your phone line and are monitoring your connection; or

You already have a “Trojan” on your computer.

Boys and girls, that is what us grown-ups call “one really big load of crap.”
 

#2: “This information was announced yesterday morning from Microsoft.”

If it was, it would be on the news, which it wasn't, and there would be a big alert splashed across the homepages of anti-virus makers everywhere, which there isn't.  Go look.  Besides - who knows when “yesterday” was?  It could have been six weeks ago!
 

#3: “Pass This Along To EVERYONE in your address book so that this may be stopped.”

This is why hoaxes spread like the viruses (virii if you speak Latin) they purport to warn you about.  Most people open attachments regardless because they get lulled into a false sense of security because of the large number of hoaxes (like this one). They figure, "it will never happen to me" because they just assume that (because of the sheer number of hoaxes) that could never happen for real then when it is real, they wonder why they fell victim.
 

#4: “AOL has said that this is a very dangerous virus and that there is no remedy for it.”

There is always a cure.  Even “Melissa” and the “Love Bug” had cures.  Besides - the only thing AOL knows about viruses (virii if you speak Latin) is the one they Send out on a CD every 6 months which is masqueraded as a “Connectivity Kit” or “The Internet Starter Kit.”
 

#5: “If you receive a screen saver from a friend or anyone you may not know with the Budweiser frogs in it, do not download it or open the file!”

Some people are very stupid.  Take the author of this hoax for example. The only way somebody is going to know if the file attached is the screensaver with the frogs is to download it and let it run!  Having collected and examined many malicious computer programs, we can tell you this: if it were a real virus, nothing would happen that you could or would see.  Not immediately, anyway.  It all goes on without a user interface because all it has to do is modify a small section of the windows registry to say that all program files will now be opened by it and not by themselves.  That way, when you try to run something with an .EXE extension, Windows will refer that file to the virus, which will Infect it, then run it, eventually causing Windows to crash and burn (something it does fine on it's own too).
 

#6: “Let's keep our email safe for everyone.”

Why would we want to keep our email safe for everyone when we are the only ones who have any business reading it?