Virus Hoaxes

Computer Security

Not that all of the commotion about computer viruses is not complicating enough but when hoaxes get thrown into the mix it just raises the confusion level even higher. Virus hoaxes are aggravating, time consuming, and can be costly as well. You are being fed a variety of information mixed with misinformation and are clueless as to what to believe. It is quite common to address every threat with a degree of certainty.

Hoaxes and chain letters serve the purpose of multiplying and maintaining a continuous growth pattern. The purpose is then served by suggesting that you send them to everyone that you know. Preying on the sympathy of the reader, the hoax email will state something along the lines of stating that some child is terminally ill and you need to forward this to everyone in your address book for prayer or it may state that you will seek true love within 24 hours if you do. There are many faces to hoax emails.

Many hoax emails warn of computer viruses that never existed and advise readers of ways to rid the computer virus from their computer that could jeopardize the well being of an otherwise healthy computer. In addition, these hoax emails also fill up email boxes with unwanted mail and clogging our email servers. The biggest risk of hoax emails is their ability to multiply in great numbers as each person sends the email to other people and so on. Within a short period of time there are a million emails being processed by the mail servers and the cost of handling all of these excess messages is paid for by the users. If it was not paid for then the mail servers would eventually crash.

Usually it is not very difficult to spot a hoax email and in some way they all state the urgency of you forwarding the email to everyone that you know. No message that contains any credibility would ever instruct you to forward any piece of mail to everyone that you know. It is ridiculous. The two main variables that make a hoax email successful is the way that the email is worded. It will sound technical and believable People tend to believe emails more if the warnings are full of technical jargon. These can often slip past the most computer savvy people. Credibility by association is the other variable meaning the prestige of whoever sent the warning makes it look more real.

Keep in mind that hoax emails will never have a name or any contact information. This makes it even harder to check if the source is credible or not. It is highly recommended that you never circulate these emails, just simply delete them. People are extremely paranoid these days with all of the hoaxes and virus threats that are circulating. The people who send these hoaxes feed off of everyone's paranoia and just keep inventing even more clever schemes. Just remember that the subject line of the hoax email will be enticing as it may say that someone has sent you an e-card, which of course might peak your curiosity.