The “Virtual Card for You” e-mail hoax has mutated yet again, promising hard drive devastation in a slightly different form: that of an Olypmic torch that “burns” your hard drive. While it earns bonus points for imagry, “Invitation” remains just as false as its predecessors.
Here’s the text of the email:
Date Captured: 8/17/2006
Be considerate & send this warning to whomever you know. PLEASE FORWARD THIS WARNING AMONG FRIENDS, FAMILY AND ALL CONTACTS!:
You should be alert during the next days: Do not open any message with an attached filed called “Invitation” regardless of who sent it.
It is a virus that opens an Olympic Torch which “burns” the whole hard disc
C of your computer. This virus will be received from someone who has your e-mail address in his/her contact list, that is why you should send this e-mail to all your contacts.It is better to receive this message 25 times than to receive the virus and
open it. If you receive a mail called “invitation”, though sent by a friend, do not open it and shut down your computer immediately. This is the worst virus announced by CNN, it has been classified by Microsoft as the most destructive virus ever.This virus was discovered by McAfee yesterday, and there is no repair yet
for this kind of virus. This virus simply destroys the Zero Sector of the Hard Disc, where the vital information is kept.SEND THIS E-MAIL TO EVER YONE YOU KNOW
The e-mail claims that McAfee discovered the host “yesterday”, but in fact the anti-virus company declared that “Invitation” is a hoax (Internet Archive). Anti-virus Symanetc agrees, and has their own debunking of the hoax.