Subject: Re: E-Mail Virus Alert

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 20 Sep 1996 17:11:17 -0400 (EDT)

>Brothers on this board, please be advised that this is not a hoax.  I have
>many friends in the computer field, and for the last year, the entire
>Internet field has said that it is impossible for an e-mail to carry a
>virus.  I was learned by many about this, and too agreeded with this
>because of the way a virus is executed.  A friend of mine just got the
>virus via e-mail, and it destroyed his harddrive.  So be advised that this
>is a REAL virus sent by e-mail.  Remember, back up be for you say, "I knew 
>

Simply receiving email cannot infect a system with a virus or trojan.
However it is possible for someone to send an encoded executable, Word
Document, various other wordprocessor documents, Excell spreadsheet,
etc.... which the email client will convert and launch (i.e., execute the
program or launch the word processor) and thereby inject the virus/trojan
onto the system... 

Solution: never enable launch on decode in your email or news programs
without running a virus scan first. 

--Mick Brown ([email-masked])