How to spot a virus hoax email

David Dorn shows you the top five items that should ring alarm bells...

How many of us have panicked at a hoax virus alert and just done what it told us to do? Many, many thousands, that's how many. So here's what to look for:

Subject line

It's almost sure to begin with 'FW:' and it will have come from a gullible person that knows you. In extreme cases, it will have 'FW: FW: FW: FW:' at the start, showing you just how many other gullible people have already had it.

WOW!!!!!!

The body of the message will have WORDS IN CAPITALS and loads of EXCLAMATION MARKS!!!!!!

These, of course, are vital to get the message across - a dead giveaway applicable to Spam and other scams, as well.

Delete a file

The hoax message will almost always advise that you delete a particular file - usually one ending with the extension '.dll' - immediately, otherwise your hard disk will be completely corrupted within microseconds. Of course, by deleting the dll file, that's exactly what you'll do. Your installation of Windows will be horribly corrupted.

Forward this email to your friends

Right up there at the beginning, you'll be told to make sure you forward the email to everybody you know, immediately, if not sooner, so that they, too, can wreck their systems.

This is not a hoax!

This is the sure-fire giveaway. If it isn't, there's no need to tell you that it isn't. Whenever you see this phrase, do what I do, and delete the message before you waste any more time on it.

There you are - the top five giveaways that a virus warning is, in fact, a hox, and one that might harm your system. Make sure that you and your family never, ever act on anything like that. Learn the signs, and bin the emails!

 

David Dorn