Chances are you have and you complied with the instructions in that e-mail. You fell victim to what is known as an Internet Hoax. Don't feel stupid or embarassed, it's happened to literally hundreds of thousands of people around the globe. Below is a list of some of the real and hoax viruses that are making the rounds this year:

     The Internet is constantly being flooded with information about computer viruses and Trojans. However, interspersed among real virus notices are computer virus hoaxes. While these hoaxes do not infect systems, they are still time consuming and costly to handle. Much more time is spent every year de-bunking hoaxes than handling real virus incidents. There are websites that describe many of the hoax warnings that are found on the Internet today. This page will only touch on the issue. I highly recommend that you spend time browsing through the Reference Links to become familiar with the wide variety of hoaxes, scams, and just plain jokes that are out there. I also cover how to identify a new hoax warning, how to identify a vali dated warning and what to do if you think a message is a hoax.

Tips For Handling E-Mail

1. Never open attachments that have .exe or .com extensions if you don't know the sender! Delete the message without opening the attachment.

2. If you're anti-virus software doesn't automatically scan e-mail attachments, save them to your hard drive first, then scan them with a vius checking program like McAfee or Symantec.

3. Should you receive e-mail warning of a virus that doesn't appear in the above list, see if it fits the profile of a hoax (Read the tips below to help identify a hoax). If it still seems to be real, please visit the reference links below to see if it's turned up on those lists. If it has please e-mail me at matthewa@lostparadise.com and I'll make sure I update my list.

4. If you get e-mail telling you to forward it to a number of others, delete it!! (See below about identifying hoaxes). Chain e-mail clogs precious bandwidth, takes up your time to readdress it, and really annoys almost everybody who receives it from you, besides they're also illegal.

     There are several methods to identify virus hoaxes, but first consider what makes a successful hoax on the Internet. There are two known factors that make a successful virus hoax, they are:

(1) technical sounding language
and
(2) credibility by association.

     If the warning uses the proper technical jargon, most individuals, including technologically savy individuals, tend to believe the warning is real. For example, the Good Times hoax says that "...if the program is not stopped, the computer's processor will be placed in an nth-complexity infinite binary loop which can severely damage the processor...". The first time you read this, it sounds like it might be something real. With a little research, you find that there is no such thing as an nth-complexity infinite binary loop and that processors are designed to run loops for weeks at a time without damage.

     When we say credibility by association we are referring to whom sent the warning. If the janitor at a large technological organization sends a warning to someone outside of that organization, people on the outside tend to bel ieve the warning because the company should know about those things. Even though the person sending the warning may not have a clue what he is talking about, the prestige of the company backs the warning, making it appear real. If a manager at the company sends the warning, the message is doubly backed by the company's and the manager's reputations.

     Individuals should also be especially alert if the warning urges you to pass it on to your friends. This should raise a red flag that the warning may be a hoax. Another flag to watch for is when the warning indi cates that it is a Federal Communication Commission (FCC) warning. According to the FCC, they have not and never will disseminate warnings on viruses. It is not part of their job.

     CIAC recommends that you DO NOT circulate virus warnings without first checking with an authoritative source. Authoritative sources are your computer system security administrator or a computer incident advisory team. Real wa rnings about viruses and other network problems are issued by different response teams (CIAC, CERT, ASSIST, NASIRC, etc.) and are digitally signed by the sending team using PGP. If you download a warning from a teams web site or validate the PGP signature , you can usually be assured that the warning is real. Warnings without the name of the person sending the original notice, or warnings with names, addresses and phone numbers that do not actually exist are probably hoaxes.

     In addition, most anti-virus companies have a web page containing information about most known viruses and hoaxes. You can also call or check the web site of the company that produces the product that is supposed to contain t he virus. Checking the PKWARE site for the current releases of PKZip would stop the circulation of the warning about PKZ300 since there is no released version 3 of PKZip. Another useful web site is the "Computer Virus Myths home page" (http://www.kumite.c om/myths/) which contains descriptions of several known hoaxes. In most cases, common sense would eliminate Internet hoaxes.

     On this day of falsehoods and chicanery, don’t be fooled by hoaxes about dreaded computer viruses whose payloads detonate upon opening electronic mail messages. Dr Solomon’s Software – the worldwide leader in computer virus d etection, identification and disinfection – says users are still plagued by an increasing number of virus hoaxes, but do not need to fear virus infection just by opening an email.

     "It is impossible to get a computer virus simply by opening an email message," says Shane Coursen, senior technology consultant at Dr Solomon’s. "But once an email virus hoax is launched, the frenzy is spread b y well-intentioned, yet uninformed, individuals and companies. When people hear about a problem, it’s human nature to warn their friends."

     The threat of viruses spreading through electronic mail becomes a reality only when users open virus-infected documents or executable files attached to their email, particularly in the Microsoft Word and Excel applications. A ttached files or documents that contain viruses can launch the infectious code, giving the virus the opportunity to spread.

     In recent years, infamous hoaxes like Good Times, PenPal Greetings and Deeyenda have created panic among computer users. One hoax, Irina, was alleged to rewrite hard drives and obliterate everything on them, and others threat en similar annihilation of data, directories or files. Irina turned out to be a marketing ploy by a publisher to promote a new book, but the stir it created continues to this day.

CIAC Hoaxes Page

CIAC Chain Letters Page

Computer Virus Myths home page

April Fools on the Net

Urban Legends and Folklore

Urban Legends Reference Pages

     A virus can not exist in an e-mail text message. They also can NOT exist in USENET (newsgroup) postings or simply "float around" the internet. Viruses must be attached to and infect an executable program. Virus es and other system-destroying bugs can ONLY exist in FILES, and since e-mail is not a system file, viruses can not exist there. While reading e-mail, you are not executing any malicious code to activate! Thus, no virus can exist. HOWEVER, if you (or your computer) download a FILE attached to an e-mail or USENET posting (i.e.-binary) and run it, there IS a chance that file could contain a virus, since a runable file could contain a virus. It is also very important that you DO NOT, under any circumstances, allow your e-mail program to automatically download and/or execute an attached file. You risk infection by doing so!

     Viruses are generally (almost always) OS (operating system)-specific. Meaning, viruses created for a DOS application can do no damage on a Macintosh, and vice-versa. If you take a careful look at these e-mail hoaxs, you'll no tice that very few are specific about which system it "infects." There has been one exception to the OS-specific rule, which is called the Microsoft Word Macro Virus, which infects documents instead of the program. This virus can affect both Macintosh and PC computers because of the way the application was written (it contains the same source code on several OS's). In the future, we might see viruses cross OS-boundries because Java, ActiveX programming languages break the typical "rules" of how a virus is OS-specific.