Viruses: Hoaxes and Urban Legends

While reading your email, you come across a message warning you not to open any email with "Goodtimes" in the subject line. The warning goes on to explain that the "Goodtimes" email contains a rather nasty virus which will severely damage your computer if you are foolish enough to open it.

Do you believe the message? Do you vigilantly check all of your email for the "Goodtimes" subject line?

Virus hoaxes can be difficult to detect, especially if you have limited knowledge about the inner workings of your computer. However, with a little knowledge, you can at least recognize what a virus can and cannot do.

Infected Email?

The first rule of recognizing virus hoaxes is to disregard any warning which claims that the virus is sent through a plain email message. YOU CANNOT BE INFECTED BY A PLAIN, TEXT-ONLY EMAIL MESSAGE.

Email with enclosures or attachments are another story, since you are sending actual files. This method is really no different than if you copied the files onto a floppy disk and handed them to the person. Treat enclosures and the attachments the same way you would items downloaded from a Web page. Save them to your computer and then scan them with your anti-virus software before opening them.

What About Other Virus Warnings?

A number of sites exist which can help you sort through virus warning messages to determine if they are real warnings or not.

• Computer Virus Myths
  http://kumite.com/myths/

  This site by Rob Rosenberger contains a vast range of information about virus hoaxes and urban legends.

• Computer Incident Advisory Capability for the U.S. Department of Energy
  http://ciac.llnl.gov/

  This site contains information concerning Internet Hoaxes as well as tips for identifying new hoaxes.

• Yahoo!'s Urban Legend: Computer Virus Directory
  http://www.yahoo.com/Society_and_Culture/
  Mythology_and_Folklore/Urban_Legends/Computer_Viruses/

  This page contains a number of links to sites discussing various computer virus hoaxes and urban legends.