virus warnings

Jeffrey A Kowalak (jkowalak@codon.nih.gov)
Mon, 14 Sep 1998 15:08:02 -0400

Hi everyone,
The following blurb is from the NIH computer gurus. In the past, we've had
several messages on the ABRF board regarding computer viruses followed by
many more messages dismissing them hoaxes, I thought this might be of
general interest to the abrf at large.

snip---

----- Please distribute the following message to all appropriate staff -----

The Internet is constantly being flooded with information about computer
viruses
and Trojans. However, interspersed among real virus warnings are computer
virus
hoaxes, which are false warnings about non-existent viruses meant to cause
panic. While these hoax messages do not infect systems, they are still time
consuming and costly to react to. At CIT, we find that we are spending as much
or more time de-bunking virus hoaxes than handling real virus incidents.

All NIH staff are requested to please not spread unconfirmed warnings about
viruses and Trojans. If you receive an unverified warning, don't forward it to
all your employees, friends, or to an NIH e-mail list. Instead, you should
follow this procedure:

1. Check the CIAC hoax page at
http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html and the Computer Virus Myths home
page
at http://www.kumite.com/myths/. If you do not find your warning listed on
either of these pages as a hoax and are really concerned about it, do one
of the
following:

snip---

Regards,
Jeff Kowalak

Jeffrey A Kowalak, Ph.D.
jkowalak@codon.nih.gov

Section on Metabolic Analysis and Mass Spectrometry
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
Building 10 Room 9D52
Bethesda MD 20892-1580

telephone: 301-594-3678
facsimile: 301-480-5460