Fact Check

Here You Have / Just for You / Here It Is

Information about the 'Here You Have / Just for You' virus

Published Sept. 14, 2010

Claim:

Virus:   Here You Have / Just for You / Here It Is


MIXTURE OF HOAX AND OUTDATED INFORMATION


Example:   [Collected via e-mail, March 2012]


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 titled Here you have/Just for you/Here it is If you open either 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 originated it 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 antivirus softwares 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!


 

Origins:   Although the warning reproduced above does reference a real virus, that virus no longer poses much of a threat to Internet users, and the warning exaggerates the potential effects of that virus by lifting unrelated information from the years-old "Life is beautiful" virus hoax.

The virus identified as VBMania (more commonly known as "Here you have it") appeared back in September 2010, as many Internet users began receiving messages like the following examples, bearing subject lines such as "Here you havet" or "Just for you":


Hello:

This is The Document I told you about,you can find it Here.
https://www.sharedocuments.com/library/PDF_Document21.025542010.pdf
Please check it and reply as soon as possible.
 



Hello:

This is The Free Dowload Sex Movies,you can find it Here.
https://www.sharemovies.com/library/SEX21.025542010.wmv
Enjoy Your Time.


 

Genuine warnings about that virus were quickly spread to Internet users via messages such as the following:



Infectious email messages have been circulating and spreading a virus called, "VBMania." If you receive any emails with "Here you have" or "Just for you" in the subject line, please delete these emails immediately. Don't open them or click on any links or attachments. You should watch out for these malicious emails both on your DOT computers and on your home
computer.

A link to a malicious Web site associated with the virus appears to be inactive, but infected hosts may continue to spread the virus via other means. The files attached to the e-mails are dangerous because they appear to be a PDF or Windows Media (WMV) files but are actually disguised files known as Trojans. After clicking them, the user is prompted to download or execute the virus. When it is run, the virus installs itself on your computer. Once your computer is infected, the virus attempts to send out the same email message to the addresses in your address book. It can also spread through accessible remote machines, mapped drives, and removable media such as thumb drives.

While this specific threat is current and has been reported on Government computer systems, you should always be on the alert for malicious emails. When you receive emails, check to make sure you know the sender before you open it. If you don’t recognize the person in the "from" line of an email, or it seems suspicious for other reasons, delete it. Also, while DOT strives to keep its anti-virus and anti-malware software up-to-date, please make sure your home computers are also protected and have current anti-virus and other security software.


A 9 September 2010 advisory from the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) also warned that these messages attempted to lure recipients into clicking their embedded links in order to install and spread malware:



US-CERT is aware of public reports of malware spreading via email. These reports indicate that the malicious email messages contain the subject line "Here you have" or "Just For You" and contain a link to a seemingly legitimate PDF file. If users click on this link, they will be redirected to a malicious website that will prompt them to download and install a screensaver (.scr) file. If they agree to install this file, they will become infected with an email worm that will continue to propagate through their email contacts.

Additional information about the "Here you have" virus posted on the McAfee Labs Blog indicates that their anti-virus software has since been updated to recognize and neutralize VBMania and that "this URL is no longer active and the email propagation vector is believed to be crippled at this time," so the threat posed by the "Here you have" or "Just For You" virus is now rather low.

See also How to Protect Yourself From the "Here You Have" Virus.

Last updated:   3 April 2012

David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994.