Hoax Warnings


	Alphabetical Index

NAME:

HackingBurgh

This is not a virus, but a hoax which was spread in usenet news and e-mail systems in May 1997. The hoax described a non-existant virus which has features no real virus could have. The warning claims to be from some US government organization known as "FCC", which does not issue virus warnings in the real world. Here's a copy of the original warning:

  Please read the following and forward it to ANYONE you know
  about the new virus!!!!

  FCC Virus Warning!!!

          The FCC has just released a new virus warning of a
  email virus named "Hackingburgh". This virus is spread
  throughout networks and email servers.

          The infected message has random titles with one
  attachment and one Java applet. When the person reads the
  message, the virus would be evoked automatically by the
  commands of the suspicious Java applet. However, since the
  virus is so small, executing it would be undectable.

          "Hackingburgh" is a Multi-Partite, memory resident
  virus. Once the virus has bee executed by the commmands of the
  Java applet, it would overwrite the MBR and place the original
  MBR in sector 7, cylinder 1 of the disk. It would become memory
  resident everytime the computer has boot up and would infect
  any removable media, including floppies and Zip disks, that was
  inserted into the drives by placing itself at the end of the
  disk and altering the boot sector to point to this code. After
  the computer has boot up on the 13th of every month, the virus
  would reformat all visible hard drive partitions. Also, it
  might also corrupt program files slowly and cause illegal
  operations.

          This virus attacks MS-DOS based computers. Under
  Windows 95 and NT, the files Explorer.exe & System.dat has a
  3-in-5 chance of being corrupted.  However, since the virus is
  a stealth virus, detection of the virus very difficult.

          In order to prevent infection by the virus, switch off
  the capability of reading Java applets in your Java-enabled
  browser like Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer(both
  browser together counts for 98% of all browsers) before reading
  ANY email messages.

Ignore this hoax warning and do not pass it on.