Description
Text of the hoax reads as follows:
WARNING: please forward as soon as possible to every e-mail address you
know of! We must be quicker than them. In case the contact happens, please
notify legal authorities. Let's stop them! Please translate in other languages
as well....
If you receive a mail with subject "I'M YOUR SHADOW! PLEASE
PLEASE DON'T FORGET ME" do not absolutely open it!
It contains an attachment that will auto-activate when opening
the mail and inserts itself in the computer without any warning
to the user, because no window, message or anything else is
displayed.
This program allows to anyone to control your own computer,
exploiting a very dangerous bugs, typically found in almost every
chat program unbeknownst to many people, sometimes even to the
program's authors. Indeed, it contains a bug, dependent on an
operating system's file which manages internet-borne
communications (even in local intranet networks). The virus
contains some of the functions used by hackers to penetrate web
sites e by paedophiles to anonymize themselves over the internet.
Anyone who connects to the virus program will be able to enter
Web sites or download and create paedophiliac material by using
your computer. In this case, you would be held responsible, if
found out, because the commands sent to the Web sites or the
download of photos would happen via your computer and through
your internet connection.
There have already been cases of people accused of committing
paedophilia who had nothing to do with that, they were only
victims of the virus. Furthermore, the program is enabled to use
your modem for connecting to international provider, making your
telephone bills grow hugely. This happens in the same instant
when your program receives the email, even without opening it.
The virus is not detected by any antivirus and there is no remedy
so far. Formatting the hard disk doesn't solve the problem,
because the virus also installs itself in the flash bios memory
of the motherboard and at every attempt to format it, the virus
relocates in RAM memory and vice-versa.
The only solution is to substitute the flash bios and
base-formatting the hard disk, not before having uninstalled the
AM for successive re-installation. If you receive the email,
there's nothing you can do. It means that you've already been
connected to an international provider. The only thing to do is
to disconnect, turn off modem and computer and disconnect it from
the electric supply. In case of reboot, the program would
re-connect the modem to the provider automatically. The worst
thing is that the phone will be free during this operation, so
there will be no way to individuate the called provider. If you
receive this mail turn off computer and moden and call a
technical support for substituting the bios' flash ROM. The
operation must be performed in this order:
1.. disconnect the hard disk's,
2.. install the new flash bios,
3.. format the hard disk on another computer,
4.. re-install the hard disk.
As for the calls to the international provider, nothing can be
done. By now, the costs will have already been charged. These are
the costs for an international connection: 3000 at response, 2560
per minute for the first 2 minutes, 5000 after the first 3
minutes. During the email download, about 500 connections are
established, and a response charge for every one.
This information has been passed by Microsoft Please diffuse it
to everyone you know, because the virus auto-sends itself to
every person you have in the contacts, so if you have received
the email, they surely have it too. It is important to warn all
those people who connect to the internet often, because 500
connections per second are established for each connection to
internet. So in one hour, you would not pay the normal 2000 liras
of the urban call, but 360.000 for an international call.
Therefore you're encouraged to warn them.