Chain Letter Virus Hoax Warning

You may have received a chain letter by mail. It instructs you to send copies of the letter (and maybe money) to a number of people and usually threatens you with bad luck if you refuse to comply. Someone decided that an email version of this chain letter with a a threat of virus infection rather than bad luck would be amusing. This hoax doesn't try to extort money but simply is intended to fool gullible people.

The "Chain Letter"hoax begins:

"This is not a joke... if you do not forward this e-mail to 20
other people..................... your computer will be a living
hell thanks to one of our very own little ingenus viruses. I
repeat this is not a joke this virus wil come to you only a week
after you open this piece of mail in a very undiscreet e-mail If
you open this e-mail after opening others, it just might come as a
letter from your "buddy"

Watch out!

You have one week... starting now.
If this virus gets in it won't come back out.
It will slowly delete 1 file a day from system IRQ files,
startup files and win 95 kernels
 for registery address {1593338-489h985}
Thank you for your time.......
#:) hahahahaha
SCREW YOU!!!

No, this isn't a "joke" but it's certainly a hoax. If you have been reading our hoax page, you will notice the characteristic request to forward the hoax to others. This is also has the poor spelling that is found in many such juvenile messages (e.g., ingenus, undiscreet).

The typical chain letter will threaten you with "bad luck" if you do not mail it (and/or some money) to a number of people. This version simply threatens you with a virus rather than "bad luck". The text of the hoax indicates you will get a virus sent via email. I have explained previously that simply by reading email or even downloading attachments, you can not be infected by a virus (Please read Common myths regarding viruses for details on the real threat of getting viruses via email.)

With the "hahahaha" and the "SCREW YOU!!!!" text, I would not have expected people to respond to this hoax but we have received copies of this that indicate quite a large number of people have followed the instructions in the hoax. Just as people continue to respond to paper mail chain letters, they seem gullible enough to respond to this hoax. Fortunately, this hoax doesn't make supernatural claims ("bad luck") but simply makes claims that are impossible (being infected by a non-existent virus if you don't forward the hoax) so there's no reason to even think about complying this chain letter email hoax.

Update!

We have since seen almost a half-dozen variants on the above "Chain Letter" hoax. There's no point mentioning each one in detail. All these variants share the characteristic that you are expected to forward the hoax to a number of people and either receive "bad fortune" if you don't forward the hoax and/or (optionally) some type of reward if you do forward the hoax. Most of these variants have omitted the "hahahaha" and the "SCREW YOU!!!!" text.

Document Last Modified: August 12, 1998
Ultimo aggiornamento della traduzione: #inserire data#