*** If you use Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL and so on READ THIS ***

[bob3160]

I just received the following notice and thought I'd better pass it on:

Please be extremely careful especially if using internet mail such as
Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL and so on.
This information arrived this morning from Microsoft and Norton.
Please send it to everybody you know who accesses the Internet.
You may receive an apparently harmless email with a PowerPoint presentation "Life is beautiful. pps".
If you receive it DO NOT OPEN THE FILE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES,
and delete it immediately.
if you open this file, a message will appear on your screen saying: "It is too late
now,
your life is no longer beautiful", subsequently you will LOSE EVERYTHING IN YOUR PC
and the person who sent it to you gain access to your name, e-mail and password.
This is a new virus which started to circulate on Saturday afternoon.
WE NEED TO DO EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO STOP THIS VIRUS.
AOL has already confirmed the severity,
and the antivirus Software's are not capable of destroying it.
The virus has been created by a hacker who calls himself "life owner".

[phil2]

Bob
Thanks for the heads up....much appreciated.
Have passed it on to all in my address book.
Cheers!   Phil

[PigDog]

A hoax from January 2002

http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/life.is.beautiful.hoax.html

PigDog

[bob3160]

I got fooled by an OLD Hoax
This is reported by both Trend Micro and Symantec.

Life is beautiful Hoax  
Reported on: January 15, 2002  
Last Updated on: September 17, 2002 08:18:39 PM
This hoax was first circulated in Portuguese. English, French, Italian and German versions have also been recorded.
Symantec Security Response encourages you to ignore any messages regarding this hoax. It is harmless and is intended only to cause unwarranted concern.

Type:  Hoax

Thanks kakapo for making me aware of it.
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/life.is.beautiful.hoax.html
http://nl.trendmicro-europe.com/enterprise/security_info/hoaxes.php?id=60

REMEMBER ONE IMPORTANT POINT:

Never open any e-mail attachment unless you know exactly what it is and where it's coming from.

[DavidR]

For any virus warning check it out fully, they can often do more harm than the virus.

One such case suggested checking for a windows system file that just so happened to have a nice icon and people were deleting this (non-critical) system file. When they found out they were tricked, then they were trying to find a replacement file, some of the sources actually had an infected file.

These people can be very devious, so check it out, Google and http://www.vmyths.com/ are your friends here.

This case - http://vmyths.com/hoax.cfm?id=277&page=3&cat=Hoax%20virus%20alerts