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Forwarded from "Barrick, Karen" <Karen.Barrick@alliedsignal.com>

BEWARE!!!!

Here are some details about quite a nasty little e-mail virus.

If anyone receives mail entitled; PENPAL GREETINGS! please delete
it WITHOUT reading it!! This is a warning for all Internet
users - there is a dangerous virus propagating across the Internet through
an e-mail message entitled 'PENPAL GREETINGS!".
DO NOT DOWNLOAD ANY MESSAGE ENTITLED "PENPAL GREETINGS"!! This
message appears to be a friendly letter asking if you are
interested in a penpal, but by the time you read this letter, it
is too late. The "trojan horse" virus will have already infected
the boot sector of your hard drive, destroying all of the data present.
It is a self-replicating virus, and once the message
is read, it will AUTOMATICALLY forward itself to anyone who's e-mail
address is present in YOUR mailbox!
This virus will DESTROY your hard drive, and holds the
potential to DESTROY the hard drive of anyone whose mail is in
your in box, and who's mail is in their in box and so on. If
this virus keeps getting passed, it has the potential to do a
great deal of DAMAGE to computer networks worldwide!!!!
Please, delete the message entitled "PENPAL GREETINGS!" as soon as
you see it! And pass this message along to all of your
friends, relatives and the other readers of the newsgroups and mailing
lists which you are on so that they are not hurt by this
dangerous virus!!!!
Please pass this along to everyone you know so this can be
stopped.

Jack Ring
Innovation Management
32712 N. 70th St.
Scottsdale, AZ 85262-7143 USA
602-488-4615
Fax) 602-488-4616

Jack,

Do you have experience with this virus, or are you simply passing along a
warning you received from someone else, perhaps over the internet?

The reason I ask is because I saw something like this a while back. I think
it was referred to as the "Good Times" virus, and was supposed to operate
like this Penpal virus. It turned out to be a hoax, but got a number of
people in an uproar.

As I understand it, there is no way to transmit a virus through a text e-mail
message. Now, if you download a file, as distinct from reading an e-mail
message, you can certainly bring something nasty into your computing
environment.

Please let me know the answer to my 1st paragraph question.

Thanks.

Gregg Conroy, CEBS SPHR
Nashville, TN USA

The "Pen Pal Virus" was a hoax several months ago, according to the U.S.
Department of Energy's Computer Incident Advisory Capability. I called
them when I received a "warning".

If you're interested in contacting them about any virus warning, you can
call 510-442-8193 or send a fax to 510-423-8002.

Or you can visit their website at http://ciac.llnl.gov/

Or you can subscribe to their mailing list and automatically receive all
their bulletins - instructions are at the website.