Users are urged not to foward chain letters to their friends and
family.
Experts at SophosLabs™, Sophos's global
network of virus, spyware and spam analysis centers, have warned
users not to forward a chain letter that has returned to haunt
email users every August for the last 4 years.
Sophos has received an increase in reported sightings of the
Giant Mars chain
letter from computer users in the last few days. The emails
claim that the planet Mars will pass close to Earth on 27
August.
Although it is true that the planet Mars passed extraordinarily
close to Earth in August 2003 (the closest the planets had been to
each other for some 60,000 years), the email chain letter spreads
across the internet every August. Sophos advises that users should
simply delete the email, and not forward it onto their friends and
colleagues.
"Chain letters like this are too easily forwarded to friends,
family and colleagues without people using their common sense.
Stories like this become treated as fact, simple because they are
repeated so often," said Graham Cluley, senior
technology consultant for Sophos. "Hoaxes and chain letters like
Giant Mars are not harmless - they waste time and bandwidth, and
can make support departments see red. Users need to be more
skeptical, and ask themselves whether everything they are told by
email can be believed."
Part of the chain letter reads as follows:
The Red Planet is about to be
spectacular! This month and next, Earth is catching up with Mars in
an encounter that will culminate in the closest approach between
the two planets in recorded history. The next time Mars may come
this close is in 2287. Due to the way Jupiter's gravity tugs on
Mars and perturbs its orbit, astronomers can only be certain that
Mars has not come this close to Earth in the Last 5,000 years, but
it may be as long as 60,000 years before it happens
again.
"Up until 27 August it's likely that we will see more and more
copies of this chain letter spreading across the net," explained
Cluley. "Then things will die down - until next year at least."
The full text of the chain letter can be found here.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.