Monday, June 30, 2008

Fw: WARNING - BIG VIRUS IS COMING

Hi,

I regularly receive emails from clients letting me know the next big virus is coming. Sadly, in almost if not all cases, the clients have been tricked.

This is what is known as a hoax virus.

It is simply an email that has been designed to trick people to warn others. As a result lots of people pass on the hoax to others creating a great deal of concern for their friends.

If you receive a virus warning then don't send it on to others unless you know there is a real virus. In the last three years I have received dozens of such warnings and every one has been a hoax.

Often these messages claim to have been checked and well known names are mentioned. It is these very same names that you can use to help you check the virus is a hoax.

For example in the message I received today was the statement:

"This is the worst virus announced by CNN."

If this were true then if I visit the CNN site then there is no doubt it would be a major news item. A check of the CNN site shows no mention of any such virus.

Next we see that Microsoft is mentioned.

"It has been classified by Microsoft as the most destructive virus ever. "

A quick visit to the Microsoft site and again no mention of a virus. Not a mention of the virus there either.

As you can see a quick check of the sites being mentioned pretty much tells us it is a hoax.

You may also wish to check the major newspaper sites. Unless the newspaper itself is tricked, if the virus threat is real, it will soon appear in the media.

I would also suggest asking your source. If they have not checked or personally know about the virus from their contact (not via email), it is a good chance they have too been tricked.

The good thing about a virus hoax is it has usually been around for a while. If you take the main words from the email and search using Google, you will often find the hoax has been reported. But you really need to take care here. Only check the sites which you know are well known sites such as the anti-virus companies. Going to a site which is not known could in fact be a trick to infect your computer. I have seen this happen on a Windows XP SP1 computer.

In this case I decided to search for the phrase "opens A POSTCARD IMAGE" including the quotes using Google. This returned an entry from hoax-slayer which confirms it is a hoax. But since I don't know if hoax-slayer itself is a friendly site or not, I would not suggest this site to others. Yes it is best not to trust sites when it comes to viruses.

It should also be kept in mind that in general Google is not a good place to search for up-to-date information. Google can take weeks to index a site and I have seen a new virus come out on the weekend from Asia and infect Australian computers on Monday morning.

If clients contact me and this will happen in the case of a real infection, if I see the infection hit more than one client then there is a real issue and I will post about the issue as quickly as possible. This blog may be your best source of information in the case of a real outbreak.

In my case I don't see these unwanted emails as I use a product I wrote called OzEfilter. OzEfilter lets me view a list emails from people I don't know, safely at the mail server. I then delete the emails before they reach my computer. In fact I've deleted over 57,000 such emails. I've not had one virus infected email reach my computer in nearly three years.

One thing I do find is when people send these hoax emails on they can feel pretty silly. No one likes to think they have been tricked. It can be quite embarrassing to go back to everyone and let them know you were tricked.

So please check your facts and your source first before helping a virus hoax achieve its goal. Your friends will appreciate the extra effort you take.

Happy hoax slaying - Kelvin Eldridge

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