I have a bit of a reputation at work when it comes to April Fools’ Day. Each year I inform the staff of some controversial policy change or a new way to make life hell for them, and each year I get complaints and some congratulations. It’s always a bit of fun.
Of course, this causes a problem because with the reputation comes both expectation, and cautiousness. Staff know I’m going to pull something, and will be on the lookout for it. So this year I pulled the April Fool, then made it real.
This morning, as usual, I sent out the email:
Hello all,
The server picked up two pupil USB keys and a (personal) staff laptop infected with viruses yesterday, so I’m just warning you there’s one doing the rounds at the moment. The fact we picked it up means it hasn’t spread on the network (so we’re safe in school), but it does mean some of your USB keys or home computers may be affected.
“Hilariously”, Symantec calls it “W32.BieberFever”, and it spreads over the internet and via USB keys, etc. in files that appear to be – but aren’t – a pirated version of Justin Bieber’s new film. No, I don’t know who he is either.
Anyway, it does the usual stuff of stealing your email passwords and tries to obtain your internet banking details and so on. You’ll know if you’re infected because websites about Justin Bieber will pop up while you’re on the internet. Presumably if you’re a 12 year old girl, you won’t notice anything unusual in this.
So please make sure your PCs at home have a virus killer installed – and kept updated! If you don’t have one, we recommend Microsoft Security Essentials:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/security_essentials/default.aspx
I expect many people realised this was the April Fool, or didn’t care and pretty much ignored it. A few people replied with comments that they weren’t falling for it, and it wasn’t as good as previous years, and so on. Which was good.
Then, having set some of it up yesterday in preparation, I did the following:
- Symantec’s website was blocked so nobody could check it for the virus details.
- For the first hour or so of the day, when people logged on they had a 1-in-4 chance of a Justin Bieber site popping up instantly.
- Through the morning, the chances of getting a Justin Bieber site on logging in was gradually increased to 100%, and the site they were taken to was one of 15 different information and fan sites.
- By 11am, I’d started redirecting sites to Justin Bieber – ITV, BBC News, Yahoo, etc.
- For the last 5 minutes of the morning, EVERY website was redirected to Justin Bieber.
Then? At noon it all vanished. Justin was gone.
Feedback, as expected, ranged from “clever”, “you got me”, “really irritating!” to “how dare you! Ruined my day!”. Also lots of people concerned their bank details had now been stolen and their computers infected. Success? I think so.
