Hoax Warnings


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NAME:

PK14 hoax

The following hoax was spread in Estonia in May 1999. The original message was in Estonian. Here's what it looked like:

 Hoiatus!
 Hiljuti on avastatud PK14 nimeline arvutiviirus, mis levib
 interneti kaudu. PK14 on ohtlik Windows 95/98/NT, UNIX-i ja
 Linux-i viirus, mis e-kirja lugemisel kopeerib ennast Teie
 arvutisse, hakkab saatma viirusega nakatatud kirju teistesse
 arvutitesse ja kropteerib 13. ja reedel Teie arvuti kevaketta
 tugeva 128 bitise kropteerimisalgoritmiga, nii et  Teie andmed
 kaovad ja neid pole enam veimalik taastada. PK14 levib
 elektronposti kaudu. Kui kirja teemaks (subject) on "PK14", siis
 on tegu viirusega. Samuti veib ka teema ees olla  "Re:". Kui te
 viirusega nakatatud kirja avate, laheb viirus ka teie arvutisse
 ja seda on sealt vaga raske katte saada, kuna viirus on
 polomorfne (st. viiruse kood on iga kord erinev, olesanne aga
 sama) ja viiruseterjeprogrammid seda ei oska veel leida ja
 havitada. Seeparast tuleb keik kirjad, mille teema on "PK14"
 avamata ara kustutada.

 Seeparast soovitan teil, kui teile tuleb kiri, mille teemaks on
 "PK14", see kohe avamata kustutada ja ma palun siiralt, et Teie
 teavitaksite sellest viirusest ka oma sepru, tuttavaid ja
 kolleege. Vastasel juhul muutub PK14 vaga metsikuks ja ta veib
 tekitada vaga suuri rahalisi kahjusid.

 edu soovides,

 Indrek Saar
 F-Secure OY Eesti

 P.S. Palun saatke see hoiatuskiri kindlasti edasi ka oma
 sepradele, tuttavatele ja kolleegidele valtimaks PK14 levikut.

The warning message pretends to be released from F-Secure, but this is not true. We don't have and never had an employee with this name. Here is the translation of this hoax message:

 Warning!
 A new computer virus named PK14, spreading through Internet, has
 been discovered recently.  PK14 is a dangerous virus, working in
 Windows 95/98/NT, UNIX and Linux environments; it installs on
 your computer when you are reading an email message, then starts
 sending emails infected with the virus to other computers, and
 on each Friday which is also the 13th day of the month, it
 encrypts the contents of your hard disk with a strong 128-bit
 encryption algorithm, making your data unrecoverable.  PK14
 spreads by email.  An email message contains this virus if its
 subject line is "PK14".  There may also be a "Re:" prefix in the
 subject line.  Upon opening an infected message, the virus will
 be installed on your computer, and it will be very difficult to
 remove the virus, because the virus is polymorphic (i.e. virus
 code will be different each time, while functioning the same
 way), and anti-virus programs are not yet able to detect and
 remove it. Therefore, all email messages with subject "PK14"
 must be deleted without opening them.

 Therefore, I recommend that when you receive a message with
 subject "PK14", delete the message immediately without opening
 it first, and I sincerely wish that you inform your friends,
 acquaintances and colleagues about this virus.  Otherwise, PK14
 will become very wild and may cause very large financial damage.

 Regards,
 Indrek Saar
 F-Secure Ltd, Estonia

 P.S.  Please forward this message to your friends, acquaintances
 and colleagues, in order to avoid spreading of PK14.

Please ignore this warning and don't pass it on.