Hoaxes and Viruses That Can Be Introduced by Email

While using the Internet, and particularly while using email you are much more likely to encounter virus hoaxes than real viruses. Virus hoaxes are annoying but basically harmless messages that purport to warn of a devastating new virus "just reported by Microsoft" which will infect your machine if you receive a message with such and such a title. You are frequently exhorted to send on the warning message to everyone on your address list and new members of the Internet frequently do just that. Presumably the pay-off for the perpetrator is to see "their" message flying by on the Internet like graffitti. You should "never" pass on one of these messages without checking out one of the virus hoax sites listed below. These sites perform the public service of posting information about known hoaxes.

Brushing off hoaxes about email viruses has become much more difficult since the development of macro-viruses that can infect email attachments. The Orthopod list was attacked twice in the last year by one of these viruses which seek out the infected computer's address book and send an infected message to everyone in it. The message contains an attachment which may be either an executable (.exe) file or a Word (.doc) file. If you open this file your computer will be infected. You are strongly advised to delete without opening, any message that contains an .exe file as an attachment unless you know and trust the sender and can scan the file first.

For discussion of viruses, hoaxes and email viruses see the Orthopod Index (Information Technology)

For more details on viruses, and for links to antivirus programs see the pages supplied by Ma Zhen-seng

"Urban Legends" are another variety of cruel hoax which occur in the email environment. These are plausible but entirely ficticious rumours which are circulated with the urgent request to pass on the message. One seen recently, for example, suggested that use of anti-perspirant was related to breast cancer; another which was sent to the Orthopod was concerned an account of forcible kidney donation surgery. Chain letters and requests for money for "this poor innocent girl" come under the same category.

Sites for checking these stories are as follows

http://www.scambusters.org/

http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.html

http://www.brunel.ac.uk/depts/cc/email/hoax.htm

http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html

http://kumite.com/myths/

http://www.cert.org/index.html

Other links to sites about viruses

http://www.bocklabs.wisc.edu/~janda/virl_faq.html