Virus or Hoax?
Many of the emails we receive talk about potentially dangerous viruses, worms, and malware. These emails talk about things ranging form Beagle.AU worm to the harmless BadTimes "virus". In order to prevent your machine from becoming infected, always run a virus scanner. If you receive a suspicious email, check a virus scanner's site, such as Symantec (makers of Norton AV) and see if the email you have received is listed.
If an email tells you to start removing files in order to prevent some sort of catastrophic failure, do not do so. Some viruses and worms pretend to come from one of your friends as a way to remove a virus you might have received. These tell you to remove certain files but these files turn out to be necessary system components. Check with your virus scanner to locate a list of hoaxes.
Lastly, never open an attachment if you cannot verify the sender.
Sample (fun) Hoaxes
|
