Join the Crew

This is another hoax email virus in the vein of the infamous Good Times hoax. It may have the subject 'Join the Crew' and contain the text

WARNING!!!!!! If you receive an e-mail titled "JOIN THE CREW" DO NOT open it! It will erase EVERYTHING on your hard drive! Send this letter out to as many people you can.

This particular hoax email virus was seen as early as January 1997, although it has only recently become quite widespread.

Many virus hoaxes:

• falsely claim to describe an extremely dangerous virus
• use pseudo-technical language to make impressive-sounding (but impossible) claims
• falsely claim that the report was issued or confirmed by a well-known company
• ask you to forward it to all your friends and colleagues

As usual, you are urged not to pass on warnings of this kind, as the continued re-forwarding of these hoaxes simply wastes time and email bandwidth.

It is possible that you may receive a hoax via email with a file attached. Obviously, such file attachments should be treated with caution as they may be virus infected. Sophos recommends deleting virus hoax emails, whether they contain file attachments or not.

Sophos suggests a policy to help prevent hoaxes from spreading in your company.