Introduction

More information

E-mail messages are just text. Text, by itself, cannot propogate a virus. A virus, trojan horse, worm, or any other type of malicious program is just that, a malicious program. These malicious programs need to execute to run.

Now this is not saying that e-mail cannot carry a virus. MIME extensions, allowing transfer of arbitrary file types over e-mail (Eudora attachments, for example), embedded HTML code that a mail reader is able to execute, VT terminal bombs, and other types of data that can cause a program to be launched can cause a payload to be dropped on your machine, spreading a virus, trojan horse, or worm.

Documents as innocent-looking as a MS Word document can contain startup macros, so that when you launch these documents, arbitrary code is run, possibly spreading a virus. You can disable these automatically running macros in your MS Word preferences file.

HTML code embedded into mail messages may also cause JAVA or JAVAScript code to be executed, depending on what program you use to read e-mail. We are not certain of which browsers are open to this type of attack, but we believe that Eudora is not vulnerable.

Transferring a virus by e-mail may be as simple as sending someone a program through e-mail and the person on the other end running it. Did you get any electronic Christmas cards last year? Did you use a virus scanner on them before you ran the program? Unknowingly, the person who sent it to you could have passed on a virus to you.

Known E-Mail Virus Hoaxes

• PenPal Greetings
• Good Times (aka "Join the Crew" or "Join the Club")
• Naughty Robot

Other Virus and Virus Hoax Resources

• U.S Air Force: Virus Hoaxes AOL4free, Deeyenda, Ghost, Good Times, Good Time Spoof, Irina, Join the Crew, Make Money Fast, Moment of Silence, Naughty Robot, PENPAL GREETINGS, PKZ300, Valentine's Greeting
• Computer Virus Myths
• Data Fellows' (makers of F-Prot) - list of virus hoxes
• IBM's AntiVirus OnLine - Hype Alerts!