In a modern take on Greek mythology a new destructive Trojan Horse programme known as AOL4free -- began appearing last month about the same time as a hoax E-mail alert about a virus also known as AOL4free or AOL4free.com started making the rounds.

The AOL4free Trojan Horse programme was first reported in early March and was being distributed mainly through America Online E-mail, reports the Symantec Corporation's Antivirus Research Center; Symantec is the creator of the popular Norton Anti-virus software line.

Meanwhile confusion has arisen over the hoax virus E-mail alert, which bears the same name as the Trojan Horse programme, although Symantec reports there is no such virus.

"A Trojan Horse describes something that gains access to your system by appearing as something other than what it really is,'' said Bruce Dilke, the computer systems administrator at the Bermuda Biological Station for Research.

"It usually comes in the form of something executable but it could be anything. A clever hacker can use one to put a virus into a respectable web-site without anyone knowing until it was too late,'' he said.

BBSR, which maintains its own dedicated Internet line, has not had any problems, reported Mr. Dilke.

The AOL4free Trojan Horse programme gains entry into a personal computer as an executable file attached to an E-mail message. Once brought into a computer's hard drive it searches out the DOS file DELTREE.EXE and then uses it to delete all files from the C: drive.

The programme will infect both DOS and Windows environments as long as DELTREE.EXE is present and accessible.

If the programme cannot access DELTREE.EXE it will spare data in the hard drive but will post an obscene message for good measure.

AOL4free (AOL4free.com), however, is just a hoax reports Symantec. It has been widely distributed on America Online and is preceded with a chain letter warning: "Anyone who receives this must sent it to as many people as you can. It is essential that this problem be reconciled as soon as possible.'' Nevertheless staff at Internet Bermuda Limited are urging users to be cautious of all messages bearing AOL4free Trojan Horse, AOL4free, or AOL4free.com., and are recommending "ALL'' E-mail attachments be scanned with the latest anti-virus programmes, which also detect known Trojan Horses.

COMPUTERS BUC