Hoax Information

Almost daily someone reports a virus or virus warning. Some are viruses, but many e-mails contain virus warnings that are hoaxes. How can you tell the difference? You can use the Symantec website to read up on hoaxes, and to check to see if a warning you have received is a hoax or a real virus.

Hoaxes sent via e-mail have some pretty consistent wordings:
1. A large company is referred to as the source. (This is intended to make you think it is legitimate).
2. "It will erase your hard drive." (This is to scare you of course, but notice it doesn't mention anything about which computer platform it will affect: Win 95, Win 95, NT, Mac, Linux, etc. Viruses tend to be platform specific, so the lack of a mentioned platform is often a key to it being a hoax. Others name all platforms, which doesn't make sense either)
3. "Send this message to everyone in your address book." (This is the object of the creator of the hoax, to send spam mail to as many people as possible).
4. "There is no known antivirus program for this virus." (The large antivirus software companies usually have a solution within 24 hours of the release of a virus).
5. At the Symantec site above read through some of the virus hoax warnings -- you will see a pattern to them, and some are pretty funny, such as the one that is also suppsed to zap your credit cards!

Be aware that while viruses have been written for all platforms, the vast majority are for Windows machines. If you use a Windows PC please, please use a virus program, and update it weekly. If you have a Mac at home chances are you will not encounter a virus, but it still makes really good sense to have a virus program on it. Lost files are hard to replace.

Protecting your computer and your files:

There are three effective ways to protect your computer from viruses:
1. Install a good anti-virus program on your computer, and upgrade it weekly! Two of the most popular anti-virus programs are Norton AntiVirus and McAffee, and they can be purchased through most computer outlets. New "virus definitions" are written by these companies as new viruses are discovered, and they are posted on their web sites. You should connect via the Internet to their website weekly and download the newest definitions -- this is really important!
2. E-mail attachments are the most prevalent way viruses are spread. Be careful about opening attachments. It is best if the person sending you the mail tells you in the message that they have an attachment. Any attachment with an "unusual" title should not be opened unless you know that the person sending the mail to you has purposely done the attachment. Many viruses attach to e-mail messages without the sender being aware.
When you send mail you should inform recipients that you have an attachment to your message.
3. If you transfer documents from one computer to another via floppy disks, zip disks, network drives, or any other type of transfer, you should have a virus program that checks the information you are transferring.