Sophos, a global leader in anti-virus protection for businesses,
has debunked a chain
letter being distributed via email predicting that the internet
will stop working on Monday, 3 March 2003.
The email claims that the so-called "Year 2003 Bug" was
discovered on 23 February, and that essential internet equipment
will be triggered to stop working on the 030303 date.
According to the chain letter:
"No one can predict how much and how long the
outage could be for. Even the experts have disagreed on the time
length, some saying 24 hours, others suggesting it could be until
network administrators patch the firmware."
"Hoaxes and chain letters like this feed on computer users' fear
and lack of knowledge of technical issues," said Graham Cluley,
senior technology consultant for Sophos Anti-Virus. "Unfortunately
many people will innocently pass it onto their friends and
colleagues believing that they are being helpful. However, like
many things you may read on the web, it is utter codswallop."
To keep informed about the most prevalent hoaxes, you can add a
free Sophos information feed to
your own website or intranet.
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.