Christmas Lights

The hoax claims a program called Christmas Lights (known as Christmas Lights.EXE) is infected with a virus which will stop your computer working on the 25th of December. When the program 'Christmas Lights.EXE' is executed a set of lights appears across the top of the screen and an icon in the taskbar allows a 'Holiday Lights' control panel to be brought up.

At the time of writing Sophos researchers have not encountered an infected copy of this program. However, it is perfectly feasible for it to be infected by a virus at a later date and redistributed (either deliberately or accidentally) via email.

Sophos recommends companies consider a rule of not allowing users to receive and send executable files, without authorization. Users may complain that they are no longer able to share computer games, greetings cards and 'amusing' joke programs but it will reduce their chances of being infected by a computer virus.

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.