Yahoo virus warning

[ActionBuddy]

Hello everyone,

I just received this Yahoo IM from the Administrator of a Yahoo cam group:

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From piercedarrow107: Listen up!!!!!!!!!!

If someone by the name of Ashley MarcJames <rugbylegende>
wants to add you to their list dont accept it. Its a virus.
Tell everyone on your list, because if somebody on your list
adds them you will get it too. It is a hard drive killer and a very
horrible virus. Please pass this on to everyone on your list. We need
to find out who is using this account. Sorry for the inconvience.
Right click on your group name of your buddy list and click Send
Message to all. Try to protect your friends.

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OK, now, I want to protect my friends and my hard drive... but being PC naive and paranoid about all this virus stuff, I'm asking these questions:

I have never received such a notice before... Is this common?

I have chatted with this Administrator several times, seems like a reasonable man, but you haven't... Should other people trust my judgement and send the warning on to their own contact list? For all we really know he or I could be the one sending the virus. If he has received IMs from this Ashley character's contacts, who knows, couldn't he be infected by it?

I have never sent a message to my entire contact list and I don't keep them separated into Groups. Do you think it is wise to follow these directions? Feels like I'm telling them the sky is falling.

Maybe I worry too much. Do any of you know more about such things and can you give me advice, please?

Thanks, Onan

 

[montanaguy]

To let you know, don't pay attention to those "chain e-mails" or even "instant messages", it's a hoax. Check out the following link:

"Hard drive killer" instant message virus is a hoax, Sophos reports


Take a look at the date of the article, this first was reported back in November of 2004.

Quote from above link:

"A typical version of the hoax message reads as follows:

If somebody by name dvorak@yahoo.com adds you. dont accept it. Its a virus. Tell everyone on ur bulletin because if somebody on ur list adds them, u get the virus too. Tell everyone on your list not to open anything from angell11, tewwtuler, and sassybitch. It is a hard drive killer and a very horrible virus. pass this letter to everyone on your buddy list. We need to find out who is really using these accounts. Sorry for the inconvienience. Sincerely, Director of Yahoo Services, tanwir2001.

Right click on the group name of your buddy list and click Send Message to All"

Simply put, it is a HOAX and nothing but a hoax. All this does is waste resources, time, and make people get worried about nothing.

 

[ActionBuddy]

Thank you, montanaguy. Good to know. I'm glad I waited for a response and didn't add anymore angst to my friends' Thanksgiving Day family traumas.

:wink: _Onan

 

[montanaguy]

You're very welcome. Basically here is a tip when it comes to those kinds of e-mails or online instant messages. The more incredible the claims being made, the greater the percentage that said message(s) is/are a hoax(es).

When you do get an e-mail/instant message, first thing to do is do a search via one of the many search engines with key phrases from the message. Another example would be like the so-called "Olympic Torch virus". Enter that on a search engine, and you'll get a lot of pages saying it's a hoax.

Montanaguy