Mail Viruses - True or false? ("J OIN THE CREW" message)

[Vladislav S. Davidzon]

Now sheesh, why would you want to set your e-mail reader to automatically
run your attachments?  You could very well run a program that would pretty
much toast your CPU or at least freeze up your machine...

There is absolutely no way to crash your computer with a simple ASCII
file.  HOWEVER, I do suspect that Java can be used to hack via e-mail.  If
you use Microsoft Outlook, that will automatically load all HTML files...
I wonder if you could just put a java script / java in there to run a
virus file?  Please correct me if I am wrong.

-vsd


On Thu, 19 Feb 1998, Jeremiah Cruit-Salzberg wrote:

> I keep seeing these don't open this or that message or your computer
> will spontaneously melt or whatever.  What I have always told everyone
> is that mail messages are in ASCII (or HTML) and that they can't hurt.
> That the only way you can be damaged by email is through attachments and
> that you should never open any you receive (except from friends and only
> after virus scanning).  I do know that you can set the option in many
> mail programs to automatically open attachments, now this is the only
> way that I could imagine an email damaging your system just by opening
> it and so I tell everyone to make sure that is not checked.
> 
> If anyone knows of an email that can kill - not second hand or hearsay -
> and can forward a copy to me, I would love to be disproved.  Or if you
> can tell me how I might be wrong I would like to know so I can inform my
> customers appropriately.  I'm not sure if you could possibly embed a
> CGI, VBscript or Javascript that could wipe your computer when you
> opened it.
> 
> By the by, here is the most recent message that 20 of my customers
> forwarded me and wanted to know what sorts of measures I was going to
> take to make sure we were safe:
> 
> 	>    Subject:	virus warning
> 	>      
> 	>    Date: Thursday, Fe bruary 12, 1998 8:08 
> 	>      
> 	>    If you receive an email titled "J OIN THE CREW" DO NOT OPEN
> IT.  IT 
> 	>    WILL ERASE EVERYTHING ON YOUR HARD DR IVE.  Forward this
> letter out 
> 	>    to as many people as you can. This is a new, very malicious
> virus 
> 	>    and not many people know about it.  This information was
> announced 
> 	>    yesterday morning from  IBM; 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.   Also,
> do not 
> 	>    open or even look at any mail that says "RETURNED OR UNABL
> E TO 
> 	>    DELIVERY."  This virus will attach itself to your computer
> 
> 	>    components and render them useless.  Immediately delete any
> mail 
> 	>    items that say this.  AOL has said that this is a very
> dangerous 
> 	>    virus and that there is NO remedy for it at this time.
> Please 
> 	>    practice  cautionary measures and forward this to all your
> online 
> 	>    friends ASAP. 
> 
> 
> ____
>        Jeremiah Cruit-Salzberg
>        Acting WAN Manager
>        Seattle Public Library
>        jeremiah at spl.org
> 
>