From: "A.Appleyard" To: DJGPP AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu Date: Wed, 21 Feb 1996 09:58:18 GMT Subject: A real Good Times virus, etc Message-Id: <349324F7442@fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk> Data Fellows Ltd's F-PROT Professional development & support said:- > Good Times ... is just a hoax. This rare `worm' ... more accurately, it was > an efficient chain letter ... relied on people to pass it along ... etc etc as people already know by now. > ... no public e-mail system supports the execution of programs while the > accompanying message is read ... This `Good Times' is fictional, but Microsoft Word viruses can spread by email (if your email reader calls Microsoft Word) and they certainly ARE real! > In April 1995 an Australian virus group known as VLAD published a real PC > virus called `Good Times'. This version of `Good Times' is an ordinary file > virus which infects COM and EXE files. To further confuse the issue, this > message is included in the virus's source code:- ; The act of loading the file ; into a mail server's ASCII ; buffer causes the "Good ; Times" mainline program to ; initialize and execute. ; Remember to email all your ; friends, warning them about ; Good Times! > For obvious reasons, anti-virus programs will not recognize this virus by > the name `Good Times'. Instead, it has been named `GT-Spoof'. > A similar incident took place also in the beginning of 1993. It involved a > rumor about a fictional virus called `Proto-T', which was soon followed by > the real thing. >> See also http://www.tcp.co.uk/tcp/good-times/ and >> ftp://usit.net/pub/lesjones/good-times-virus-hoax-faq.txt. >> [Mikko Hypponen, Data Fellows Ltd's F-PROT Professional Support]