(24) Happy Exe—MSNBC News Article

" HAPPY99.EXE STARTED MAKING its way around the Internet about Jan. 20, sending hundreds of copies of itself via e-mail attachments and newsgroup postings. According to Helsinki, Finland, data security firm Data Fellows Inc., the worm does not attempt to destroy files on infected machines, but it sends e-mails and newsgroup postings without the victim’s knowledge and could cause network slowdowns or even crash corporate e-mail servers.

The worm, so designated because it can replicate on its own, arrives as an e-mail or newsgroup attachment and infects only users who run the attachment.
Once they do, all victims see is a window with a fireworks display. But behind the scenes, the worm alters the host computer’s winsock32.dll file, the computer’s doorway to the Internet. Then, each time a user initiates e-mail or newsgroup activity, by either receiving or sending e-mail or posting to a newsgroup, Happy99 spams the newsgroup or e-mail recipient with copies of itself. Any type of activity on port 25 or 119 will trigger Spam activity, according to Takata, senior software support engineer of Data Fellows."

This is a hoax. A version of the file is posted above.

A version of the file is posted above. If you receive it somewhere else, you may have infected your computer with the virus. If you would like to run the one above, it is virus free, guaranteed. The virus does exist, but you have to download it and then activate the file. You cannot catch it by opening your e-mail.

As most of the professionals will tell you, do not download anything unless you have a anti-virus program running, and more importantly, know who you are down loading a file from...that is the most important. I personally do not download any program, no matter what the promise, unless I personally verify where the program came from…this applies to my relatives, such as my brother or a good friend. I will download from a reputable company...jokes, gifts, promises, and before I pass them on, I run them again through our four anti-virus programs that we keep up-dated often. I am scared to death of viruses. We have had them in our systems, on our laptops, and from disks purchased at a retail store (several years ago, not recently ). Also remember the old adage, if it sounds too good to be true, it most likely is not true. Trust no one on the internet...not even you wife, as she may not have know who she downloaded the program from. Sorry, if this offends anyone...trust no one, not your wife, not your brother, not your sister, unless you know where the program came from…and always have a virus program running.

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