The Good Times "Virus" Hoax

As reported in various sources, the so-called Good Times "virus" propogated through e-mail messages is a hoax. There is no way, per se, for a virus to be passed within an e-mail message. Viruses are passed along through executed programs.

A virus would have to be included as a executable file attachment or as an encoded executable file within an e-mail message. That executable file would then have to be run on the target computer before any potential virus infection could take place.

Several excellent sources of information on the Good Times "virus" have been posted on the World Wide Web. Included among them is a Frequently-Asked-Questions (FAQ) file authored by Les Jones and is periodically updated.

An HTML version of this file is available at http://www.usit.net/public/lesjones/goodtimes.html. A text-only version is available at ftp://usit.net/pub/lesjones/good-times-virus-hoax-faq.txt.

General information about viruses is available at the Dr. Solomon Virus Central site, including information about the newly-discovered Microsoft WordMacro virus.

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Last Updated: 03/27/96 ac