I M P O R T A N T W A R N I NG ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! PLEASE
> READ!
>
>
>
>
> Heed the warning. It sounds awful!!!
>
> Anyone-using Internet mail such as Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL
> and so on.
>
> This information arrived this morning, Direct from both
> Microsoft and Norton..
>
> Please send it to everybody you know who has access to
> the Internet
>
>
>
> You may receive an apparently harmless e-mail with a
> Power Point presentation ' Life is Beautiful '
>
> If you receive it DO NOT OPEN TH E FILE UNDER ANY
> CIRCUMSTANCES, and delete it immediately.
>
> If you open this file, a message will appear on your
> screen saying: 'It is too late now; your life is no
> longer beautiful.'
>
> Subsequently you will LOSE EVERYTHING IN YOUR PC, And
> the person who sent it to you will gain access to your
> name, e-mail and password.
>
> This is a new virus which started to circulate on
> Saturday afternoon.
>
> AOL has already confirmed the severity, and the anti
> virus software's are not capable of destroying it.
>
> The virus has been created by a hacker who calls
> himself 'life owner'.
>
> PLEASE SEND A COPY OF THIS E-MAIL TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS,
> And ask them to PASS IT ON IMMEDIATELY!
>
> THIS HAS BEEN CONFIRMED BY SNOPES
>

Hoax as reported on Snopes

http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/lifeisbeautiful.asp

That has been going around in one form or another for years. Snopes confirms it as a hoax.

*edit* You beat me to it Scott.

i'm more worried about the North Korean missles be seeing you

LOL for once

hoax? well thats' a shame...it sounded so convincing..

well it was past on to me by a good source and there has been hackers out there who relase nasty virus in emails through myspace etc regardless what was posted u can be never to safe on the web when theres hackers and virus going around all iam doing is passing it on its up to the person if they choose to believe it or not well take care cant say i didnt try to warn others out there i had friends who had the pcs hacked in to already and iam a computer exspert i already had to format 3 pcs already do to a wicket virus wich was cause by a email not fun

There are a lot of emails circulating, which contain the line "confirmed by Snopes" When it fact it hasn't been. The best thing to do there, is go to the Snopes website, or Mccaffee, and confirm it.

A tip on that, if you go to Google, and search "Snopes (type in the virus name)" and it will direct you to the page. Much faster than searching through Snopes.

So this is something different vs this one below ???...

Tomorrow -- April 1 -- is D-Day for Conficker, as whatever nasty payload it's packing is currently set to activate. What happens come midnight is a mystery: Will it turn the millions of infected computers into spam-sending zombie robots? Or will it start capturing everything you type -- passwords, credit card numbers, etc. -- and send that information back to its masters?

No one knows, but we'll probably find out soon.

Or not. As Slate notes, Conficker is scheduled to go "live" on April 1, but whoever's controlling it could choose not to wreak havoc but instead do absolutely nothing, waiting for a time when there's less heat. They can do this because the way Conficker is designed is extremely clever: Rather than containing a list of specific, static instructions, Conficker reaches out to the web to receive updated marching orders via a huge list of websites it creates. Conficker.C -- the latest bad boy -- will start checking 50,000 different semi-randomly-generated sites a day looking for instructions, so there's no way to shut down all of them. If just one of those sites goes live with legitimate instructions, Conficker keeps on trucking.

Conficker's a nasty little worm that takes serious efforts to bypass your security defenses, but you aren't without some tools in your arsenal to protect yourself.

Your first step should be the tools you already have: Windows Update, to make sure your computer is fully patched, and your current antivirus software, to make sure anything that slips through the cracks is caught.

But if Conficker's already on your machine, it may bypass certain subsystems and updating Windows and your antivirus at this point may not work. If you are worried about anything being amiss -- try booting into Safe Mode, which Conficker prevents, to check -- you should run a specialized tool to get rid of Conficker.

Microsoft offers a web-based scanner (note that some users have reported it crashed their machines; I had no trouble with it), so you might try one of these downloadable options instead: Symantec's Conficker (aka Downadup) tool, Trend Micro's Cleanup Engine, or Malwarebytes. Conficker may prevent your machine from accessing any of these websites, so you may have to download these tools from a known non-infected computer if you need them. Follow the instructions given on each site to run them successfully. (Also note: None of these tools should harm your computer if you don't have Conficker.)

As a final safety note, all users -- whether they're worried about an infection or know for sure they're clean -- are also wise to make a full data backup today.

What won't work? Turning your PC off tonight and back on on April 2 will not protect you from the worm (sorry to the dozens of people who wrote me asking if this would do the trick). Temporarily disconnecting your computer from the web won't help if the malware is already on your machine -- it will simply activate once you connect again. Changing the date on your PC will likely have no helpful effect, either. And yes, Macs are immune this time out. Follow the above instructions to detect and remove the worm.

possible good advice: don't open attachments from people you don't know.


. . .

Thanks Mike...I'm a severe techno-tard, so I'll take any help I can get...

How to spot a virus hoax (courtesy of vmyths.com, which you can find here: http://www.vmyths.com/resource.cfm_id=19&page=1.htm)

Did a genuine computer security expert send you the alert?
If your mother-in-law forwarded a chain letter alert, which came from her dentist, who got it from a podiatrist, who got it from his secretary's daughter, who supposedly received it at college directly from IBM's virus experts...

Does it urge you to forward the chain letter to everyone you know?
Genuine virus alerts won't ask you to participate in a chaotic email distribution scheme.

Does the email offer a link to an authoritative details page?
Email alerts shouldn't go into detail about a computer virus. Rather, the alert should summarize the threat and provide a link to a "for more info" page stored on a well-known computer security website.

Beware: some hoax alerts include generic links to respected websites. The hoaxster wants you to assume the website has important information about the virus.

A rule of thumb: the link to more information should take you directly to more information about the threat. If it doesn't, then you should chide the sender for failing to give you accurate information.

It's not just attachments from people you "don't" know that you have to worry about. Even attachments from people you DO know can be contaminated. If your friend has a "worm", the worm will send you emails with attachments from your friend's account. So it appears to be coming from your friend, when in fact your friend is totally unaware that the worm is using his computer.

If you are not expecting an email with attachments from a friend, it's a good idea to confirm with your friend first that he did in fact send the email.

Keep your anti-virus software updated too. And if you use Windows, get the frequent updates for it which often fix known safety issues.

And always back up your hard drive regularly so you can restore most of your files should you get a virus/worm.

Hey Ladywolf, sounds like you work in the field. Does "IS " mean information systems?

As long as these virus hoaxes have been going on, I am still amazed at how many people fall for them and pass them on to others. I just don't get it.

*cough* - i love linux / bsd

Going on 20 years now :) And yes, it does, lol.

Snopes says it's a hoax: http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/lifeisbeautiful.asp

Don't sweat it!

'preciate the warning, though it doesn't sound like an e mail I would open anyway