Home eLibrary Computing Is the Virus a Hoax or Not ?
Is the Virus a Hoax or Not ?
Thursday, 09 August 2007 08:24

At some point in time you may get an email from a friend or someone you know warning you of the latest virus that can destroy or wipe your computer hard drive or otherwise cause damage your computer in some. Is the warning of the virus real or is it just another virus hoax or urban legend?

Avoiding Virus Infection

There must be thousands of known viruses for windows driven computers and the problem of avoiding a virus infection is on everybody's mind. So how do tell if a warning for a virus is a hoax or not? To minimise the risk of catching a real virus there are only a few things you need to think about.

If you get an email with a warning of a virus from somebody you don't know or even somebody that you do know there is a strong possibility that the virus is a hoax.

People you don't know will simply not send you a warning about a virus, however if there are mail attachments there may be other malicious spyware codes hiding in the email. The simple action here is to immediately delete emails from strangers that offer a warning about a virus. The virus warning will almost definitely be a hoax.

If you get a virus waning email from a friend it is also likely to be a hoax, but beware of any attachments in this type of email. If you open this email warning about a virus treat it with suspicion and get confirmation from the Internet.

The Written Word

There may be !exclamation marks! or words written in UPPERCASE CAPITAL LETTERS almost shouting about it in the original virus warning if so this is probably a virus hoax. Well to be rational about this, all legitimate anti virus organizations will not send out warnings using exclamation marks and uppercase characters, they will issue formal warnings with all kinds of references which support the warning and they will not send these out to personal emails unless you have subscribed to a such a warnings service. These virus warnings are usually written by somebody else, somebody trying to attract your attention and simply spread chain-mails around.

If you actually open a virus warning from a trusted friend and if after reading the warning about the virus and it sounds empty, without substance or has no third party references to the name of the virus then it is clearly a virus warning hoax.

Identify the Virus Warning Hoax

If you can identify the name of the virus or even use the email virus warning title, search the internet and try and find a trusted third party anti virus expert to confirm if the virus is a hoax or not. You will probably find that almost all emailed virus warnings are a virus hoax.

When you do your search, if Google finds nothing, go to a site that specializes in virus hoaxes and run a search. Here are some such sites to get you started:-

Remember if you get an email warning about the latest virus that can !WIPE YOUR COMPUTER! or wipe your hard drive it is most likely a virus hoax or what they commonly call an urban legend.
 

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