Sunday 18 January 2009

Hoax Virus Warnings

I'm always surprised by the number of fake and spoof virus warnings that still circulate despite being well out of date and with very common themes that highlight that it isn't genuine.

If you receive an email from anyone claiming to be a virus warning that needs to be passed on to everyone in your address book then the chances are that it is a hoax and purely an attempt to clog email systems and propagate a myth. If the message also claims that the warning was issued by Microsoft, AOL or Norton then the chances of the message being fake are 100%. In particular Norton never issue virus warnings as that is purely a product name not a company which is actually called Symantec.

If you receive a message like this either delete it or copy part of the text into Google and you will find many pages outlining details of the hoax warnings.

Some of the best sites for checking the validity of virus warnings and hoaxes are as follows

http://www.f-secure.com/virus-info/hoax/
http://vil.nai.com/vil/hoaxes.aspx
http://urbanlegends.about.com/

Remember to check any warning before forwarding it to all your friends and propagating the virus hoax.

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