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<h1>Wobbler Hoax</h1>
<p>
<b><a href="http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/refa.html#hoax">Category</a></b>: Hoax
<p>
<P>The following two messages have been sent out by email. <b>They are both versions of the same hoax.</b> This "virus" does not exist.</P>
<P>The hoax message includes one of the following "warnings":
<blockquote>
<p>Dear All,
For your reference, take necessary precautions.
If you receive an email with a file called
California, do not open the file. The file
contains WOBBLER virus.
WARNING
This information was announced yesterday morning
from IBM; AOL states that this is a very
dangerous virus, much worse than "Melissa", and
that there is NO remedy for it at this time.
Some very sick individual has succeeded in using
the reformat function from Norton Utilities
causing it to completely erase all documents
on the hard drive. It has been designed to work
with Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet
Explorer. It destroys Macintosh and IBM
compatible computers. This is a new, very
malicious virus and not many people know about it.
</blockquote>
<p>Second sample of hoax message "warning":
<blockquote>
<p>VIRUS ALERT
If you receive an email with a file called
"California" do not open the file. The file
contains the virus. This information was announced
yesterday morning by IBM.
The report says that "this is a very dangerous
virus, much worse than "Melissa" and there is NO
remedy for it at this time. Some very sick
individual has succeeded in using the reformat
function from Norton Utilities causing it to
completely erase all documents on the hard drive.
It has been designed to work with Netscape Navigator
and Microsoft Internet Explorer. It destroys
Macintosh and IBM compatible computers. This is a
new, very malicious virus and not many people know
about it at this time.
Please pass this warning to everyone in your address
book and share it with all your online friends asap
so that the destruction it can cause may be minimized.
</blockquote>
<p><b>Note</b>
<p><a href="/avcenter/venc/data/vbs.lostsoul.worm.html">JS/VBS.LostSoul.Worm</a> is a worm that spreads via email. When executed, it displays a text file containing one of the above hoax messages. The attachment in
the email message is named <b>Wobbler.txt.jse</b> or <b>Wobbler.txt.vbe</b>. When opened, these attachments create and execute a temporary file
containing malicious code.
<p><b><a href="http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/refa.html#removal">Removal</b></a>:
<p>
<p>Please ignore any messages regarding this "hoax" and do not pass on any messages regarding it.
Passing on messages about this hoax serves only to further propagate it.</p>
<p><img src="http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/graphics/black.gif" width=380>
<P>
<I>Write-up by: Motoaki Yamamura</I><BR>
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