AOL 83 Minutes

Text of this virus hoax reads as follows:

ON JUNE, 23 2000 AOL WILL START TO MONITOR YOUR ACCOUNT WHILE YOU ARE ON OR OFF LINE WE KNOW HOW TO STOP AOL FROM DOING THIS.. THIS IS WHERE YOU COME IN IF YOU SEND THIS TO 10 PEOPLE IN THE NEXT 83MIN. WE WILL PROTECT YOUR ACCOUNT IF YOU DONT THAN WE WILL LOAD A VIRUS IN YOUR ACCOUNT IF YOU THINK WE OUR KIDDING AROUND THAN JUST TRY US!

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.