A fraudulent Y2K e-mail has been circulating around the Internet with a trojan horse attached. To add to the confusion, it has a return address pointing to Microsoft's support staff. This is the latest of the troubles that Microsoft finds itself in, although unwittingly.

The trojan horse, like its mythological reference, is a benign and harmless looking piece of software that finds its way into systems and then unleashes its 'criminal act'. In this case, it is in the form of a mail attachment that reportedly steals data from a user's computer.

The e-mail invites users to download an attached Microsoft Year 2000 counter. Download releases a data-eating trojan horse that steals a person's password, login and username. The e-mail carries Support@microsoft.com as its 'from' address.

The trojan horse is dangerous as it replaces the Wsock32.dll file on the user's local system, which is essential for connecting to the internet.

The text of the phony email reads:
"From: support@microsoft.com
Subject: Microsoft Announcement
Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 23:37:05 +0200
To All Microsoft Users,
We are excited to announce the Microsoft Year 2000 Counter.
Start the countdown NOW.
Let us all get in the 21 Century.
Let us lead the way to the future and we will get YOU there FASTER and SAFER.
Thank you,

Microsoft Corporation"

Microsoft has posted a warning about this prank on its Year 2000 portal page.

Incidentally, Microsoft doesn't distribute Y2K related updates through e-mail or through e-mail attachments. Company sources said, "We don't know who sent it but we were notified about it on Wednesday the 15th."

The culprit remains unknown, but history and evidence point to Bulgaria, the source of many a computer virus and pranks.

See related article "And they keep coming back"