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Virus: Invitation (aka Olympic Torch, aka Merry Christmas)
Examples:
Origins: The classics never go away, it seems, so just in time for the 2006 Winter Olympics someone dusted off an old virus warning hoax (most commonly seen in its incarnation as the "[Virtual] Card for You" hoax) and reintroduced it as an "Olympic Torch" virus warning (also known as the "Invitation virus"). The bottom line is that this same basic hoax has been circulating in various languages since at least 2000, with occasional changes along the way. No such (incurable) virus exists, has been identified by McAfee, or was reported on by CNN. The 2007 "Merry Christmas" variant of the Invitation/Olympic Torch hoax should not be confused with the (real) Zafi.D worm from 2004, which did spread via attachments to messages bearing subject lines of "Merry Christmas" but is now rare and easily caught and eliminated by most anti-virus software products. Additional information:
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