Blotto

The text of this hoax is as follows:

This new virus called "Blotto" is the most destructive ever. It will physically destroy your computer! It will destroy your hard drive by telling it to read a certain track (portion) 65,535 times! That will cause the drive to severly overheat and eventually that destroys the drive. It also tells the computer to sit on a certain register until the circuitboard underneath literally melts!

IT COMES FROM EMAIL. IF YOU GET AN EMAIL SAYING "WANT TO PLAY BLOTTO?" DELETE IT IMMEDIATELY AND DON'T OPEN THE ATTACHMENT!

PLEASE Send this to everyone you know to warn them.

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.