Virus Varning! "Postcard From Hallmark"

[Lucky13]

Thought that i'd be better to be safe than sorry, so....

Virus varning! "Postcard From Hallmark"

PLEASE FORWARD THIS WARNING AMONG FRIENDS, FAMILY AND CONTACTS!

You should be alert during the next few days. Do not open any message with an attachment entitled 'POSTCARD FROM HALLMARK, 'regardless of who sent it to you. It is a virus which opens A POSTCARD IMAGE, which 'burns' the whole hard disc C of your computer.
This virus will be received from someone who has your e-mail address in his/her contact list. This is the reason why you need to send this e-mail to all your contacts. It is better to receive this message 25 times than to receive the virus and open it.
If you receive a mail called' POSTCARD,' even though sent to you by a friend, do not open it! Shut down your computer immediately. This is the worst virus announced by CNN.
It has been classified by Microsoft as the most destructive virus ever. This virus was discovered by McAfee yesterday, and there is no repair yet for this kind of virus. This vir us simply destroys the Zero Sector of the Hard Disc, where the vital information is kept warning!!

 

[evangilder]

There are a number of thinsg you can do to protect yourself from viruses. Part of it involves being properly informed. This scare-mongering does no one any good. If won't "burn" your hard drive and the suggestion that you turn your computer off right away when you receive an e-mail is ridiculous. How does one remove a virus from their computer if it is off???

Here is some info on this:
snopes.com: 'Hallmark Postcard from a Family Member' virus

When in doubt, check snopes.com: Urban Legends Reference Pages when you get something like this.

One more thing, you should always check up on things like this before forwarding it to your entire inbox. There are many reasons for this but think about this:

Someone forwards you an e-mail from another group of people. You, in turn, forward it to a bunch of people. As the mailing list grows, the possibility that it will hit someone who is a spammer are increased. Now you have just handed them a bunch of free, known good e-mail addresses.

So, get a good joke or warning you want to forward? Remove previous header info with all the of the e-mail addresses in it and use the bcc function to send it to others. The bcc function is "blind carbon copy", which means that everyone will receive it, but no one will know who else received it.

 

[Lucky13]

Good info there! Cheers Eric!

 

[BikerBabe]

You could also just use MailWasher and sort spam like that out, before opening your e-mails-
It's free, just google it.

 

[evangilder]

Yep, and it is always a good idea to not open anything if you don't know who the sender is, or if the sender doesn't normally send you attachments.