Warning ! - WOBBLER Virus

  • Thread starter Thread starter HS
  • Start date Start date
H

HS

New member
> Just received this today and passing message on as requested:
>
> A new Virus - WOBBLER is on the loose.
>
> <b>It will arrive on e-mail entitled "How to Give a Cat a
> Colonic".</b>
>
> IBM and AOL have announced that it is very powerful, more so
> than Melissa.
>
> There is no remedy. It will eat all your information on the
> hard drive
> and also destroys Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet
> Explorer.
>
> Do not open anything with this title and please pass this
> message on to
> all your contacts and anyone who uses your e-mail facility.
>
> Not many people seem to know about this yet so propagate it as
> fast
> as possible.
>
> This information was announced yesterday morning by IBM.
>
> Please share it with everyone in your address book so that the
> spreading
> of the virus may be stopped.
>
> This is a very dangerous Virus and there is no remedy for it at
> this time.


------------------
"The Gun from Down Under !"
http://www.para1911fanclub.w3.to/
E-mail hotshot_2000@hotmail.com
Alternate E-mail
HS2000@ausi.com
 
( www.Symantec.com )


Description:

The following two messages have been sent out by email. They are both
versions of the same hoax. This "virus" does not exist.

The hoax message includes one of the following "warnings":


Dear All,
For your reference, take necessary precautions.
If you receive an email with a file called
California, do not open the file. The file
contains WOBBLER virus.

WARNING
This information was announced yesterday morning
from IBM; AOL states that this is a very
dangerous virus, much worse than "Melissa", and
that there is NO remedy for it at this time.
Some very sick individual has succeeded in using
the reformat function from Norton Utilities
causing it to completely erase all documents
on the hard drive. It has been designed to work
with Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet
Explorer. It destroys Macintosh and IBM
compatible computers. This is a new, very
malicious virus and not many people know about it.

Second sample of hoax message "warning":


VIRUS ALERT

If you receive an email with a file called
"California" do not open the file. The file contains
the virus. This information was announced yesterday
morning by IBM.

The report says that "this is a very dangerous
virus, much worse than "Melissa" and there is NO
remedy for it at this time. Some very sick
individual has succeeded in using the reformat function
from Norton Utilities causing it to completely erase
all documents on the hard drive. It has been
designed to work with Netscape Navigator and
Microsoft Internet Explorer. It destroys Macintosh
and IBM compatible computers. This is a new, very
malicious virus and not many people know about it
at this time.

Please pass this warning to everyone in your address
book and share it with all your online friends asap
so that the destruction it can cause may be minimized.

Please ignore any messages regarding this "hoax" and do not pass on any
messages regarding it. Passing on messages about this hoax serves only to further
propagate it.

Write-up by: Motoaki Yamamura
Updated: August 26, 1999
 
bogus warnings can usually be identified by a couple of indicators...

1. Emotional, as opposed to clinical language.

2. A lack of substantiation- if a genuine warning, expect a website listing the information, a telephone #, or both.

3. You will be urged to forward these to everyone you know.

With hoaxes, there is no real "need" for viruses- the hoax is the "virus"- cluttering up system resources and wasting time throughout the known galaxy.
 
Regardless of this hoax, there have been two new, legit warnings posted this week by Symantec and NAI. Both companies are working on fixes.

Just what I need, what with TEOTWAWKI less than a month away... Damn virus writers! Damn them to hell! Damn their eyes!

------------------
"The right of no person to keep and bear arms in defense of his home, person and property,
or in aid of the civil power when thereto legally summoned, shall be called into question.."
Article 11, Section 13, CO state constitution.
 
If ever there was justification for public canings, or worse, it's virus writers. After the caning, they should be hung from the genitalia for a spell, then tarred & feathered, followed by life imprisonment.
 
Futo,
I'm not 100% certain viri writers have genetalia, but I agree with you.
In 9 years of computer repair/support I have never seen any case of data loss due to a virus. I have however seen many thousands of dollars spent to combat them, and a like amount spent on problems that could be traced to a virus, but never 1 instance of actual direct data loss. I have only heard first hand of 1 instance, by a fellow tech, that could be verified, of the Stoned virus overwriting the FAT of a hard drive. This isn't to say that it doesn't happen, but it isn't as common as many believe. The hype is worse that the bite. Back a few years ago when the Michaelangelo(sp) virus was going to doom the world, I was on site at a customer where I directly supported 2500 PC's. None were affected. A lot were infected. Virus damage is like a shark attack. Real bad when it happens, say virus and ya get attention, is really pretty rare.

------------------
CCW for Ohio action site.
http://www.ofcc.net
Do what you C.A.N.

http://thematrix.acmecity.com/digital/237/cansite/can.html
 
Hal, I can't speak for your experience, but when Melissa hit, I warned everyone at my company that it would be nasty. The people at my location instantly updated their virus checkers, and quite a few got hit. However, since they were prepared, no one lost any data.

Another location ignored the warning. They lost some 600 documents that they were storing locally, instead of on the servers. Some of those people were *hysterical* after the attack, screaming that I do something about it. I gave them all the same reply: "Hey, I warned you two weeks ago and told you exactly what to do. Everyone here followed my instructions, and none of them have had any problems. You didn't update your checker, and you haven't been backing up your data. Next time, you'll damn well LISTEN to what the sysadmin says, won't you?"

The moral: you absolutely cannot afford to be complacent about virus attacks, if you give a swut about your data.

------------------
"The right of no person to keep and bear arms in defense of his home, person and property,
or in aid of the civil power when thereto legally summoned, shall be called into question.."
Article 11, Section 13, CO state constitution.
 
Coin,
Don't take my post to mean that I downplay the importance of antivirus measures, or dismiss the threat. I certainly don't. I agree it is important in a business to guard against a virus infection. It just isn't that common for a virus to cause a loss of data is all I meant. The more recent ones are a lot nastier than the older ones, but so are the operating systems. There is hardly a week that goes by that I don't remove a virus from a customer's PC, when the only indication of a virus is the loss of the CD Rom.. Call comes in: I can't use my CD Rom. I answer the call. Shell to Dos. Run chkdsk. 654K of base memory. Check control panel,system,performance. Sure enough, instead of optimal, there is a boot sector warning. These people have been running for who knows how long with a virus and don't even know it. In every case, that I have seen this, there has been no data lost. I have little sympathy for anyone that does not have multiple backups of their important files. I see thousands of times more data loss due to improper file mgt or drive failures. A virus is nothing to scoff at,I agree 100%, some can cause a great deal of unnecessary expense, and most honestly do. I can work around a virus on any of my own PC's, just as I can work around drive failures. I should be able to, I earn my food and gun money that way ;), but I realize I am not your average user. Think of it this way. If I started a mass e-mailing saying "Warning,excess heat can cause the bearings in your hard drive to seize" think anyone would pay attention? Think anyone would post warnings all ove the place? Yet everyday, I see lost drives because some twit decided to bury their PC inside a closed area with no venilation. Tell someone to update their pattern file and you get their attention, yet tell them not touse that sapce heater,right next to their PC and plugged into the same circut and you get a blank stare. I only meant, if you get a virus, it usually is no big deal. Just clean it out as best you can and go on. Chances are that if you got it once, you'll get it again. No need to panic, but don't ignore it either. Like anything bad, it will get worse, but it is seldom fatal. Even in the situation you describe, 600 documents isn't all that many. Yeah, if it's the most important document on the drive then it's the biggest deal of the decade to the user. Sorry to have given the impression that I just blow off the threat of a virus, it wasn't my intent.

------------------
CCW for Ohio action site.
http://www.ofcc.net
Do what you C.A.N.

http://thematrix.acmecity.com/digital/237/cansite/can.html
 
Hal, no problem. Yes, most virus dangers are overblown, but for this group, 600 documents was about a year's worth of work. No backups. Idiots.

I just don't think that virii can be blown off, no matter how innocuous they seem.


------------------
"The right of no person to keep and bear arms in defense of his home, person and property,
or in aid of the civil power when thereto legally summoned, shall be called into question.."
Article 11, Section 13, CO state constitution.
 
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