Computer Virus Hoaxes
In today's society, it is unfortunate that computer users have be constantly wary of the threat of computer viruses. Whether infecting your system by a direct, vandalous attack or something seemingly as benign as e-mail (actually a more common threat), computer viruses have the potential to be very destructive, rendering your computer useless. While viruses are a very real problem, so is dealing with the proliferation of nuisance messages sent through e-mail and instant messaging applications, warning of this or that virus. Commonly, such e-mail messages advise you to also spread the word of the discussed virus.
More often than not, such messages are merely propagating a virus hoax...a story that was made up and spread to the public and, unknown to many readers, can be confirmed through credible anti-virus agencies as a false alarm. Without knowing how to confirm the validity of the message, many people simply "play it safe" and forward the message to their friends and other acquaintances, trying to do a good deed when in fact they are primarily just increasing the load on network servers.
To help spread information on resources where one can investigate the validity of a virus threat, I have provided some links below which I hope will be useful. Note that some of these links are specific to PC (Windows) computers but there may also be Macintosh/Apple information. Perhaps as computer users become more knowledgeable of viruses and virus hoaxes, we can all minimize the spread of false information.
Safe Computing!
Computer Virus Hoax
Information
Note, these are specific links to virus hoax information only but the pages
often provide links to other very useful information about legitimate viruses
Don't Spread that Hoax! - Nonprofit.net Virus Hoax page by Charles Hymes
Computer Software - Popular Anti-Virus Programs
Online Virus Scanning of your Computer
McAfee VirusScan Online (Paid subscription service)
 |
