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Virus Warnings and what to do when you receive one in our email.
by Bj aka Bill Brown Hosting and Backup Service provider
Bj aka Bill Brown 
Hosting and Backup Service...
We all get many Virus warnings in our emails. In most cases from well meaning friends, but unfortunatly we also get them from people just out to cause alarm.
The first thing I recommend doing when you receive a virus warning , no matter who sent it to you, is the following.
_____1. Go to www.symantec.com
_____2. Next click on the arrow on the left hand box of the two you see at the
_______top right of the page and select Viruses and risks from the drop
_______down menu.
_____3. Copy and past the Virus name given in the email into the right hand
_______box at the top right of the page.
_____4. Now click on the arrow at the right of this box.
_____5. When the search results are displayed look at the list and select what
_______looks like the most relevant result and click on its title.
_____6. You should now have a page, which will tell you if it is a real virus or a
_______Hoax.
If it’s a real virus by all means pass it on to your friends but include the url of the page that you found on Symantec and tell them to go and check the details.
If it is a Hoax, reply to your informant and send them the link telling them it is a Hoax and give them a copy of these instructions along with a recommendation to always check before passing such information.
The reason people start these hoax mails is to further tie up the Internet email system with yet more useless emails being sent along with the millions of useless spam mails that are sent out daily.
Be safe on the Internet and always check. Never assume its True, just as you should never assume it’s another Hoax.
Jul 22nd 2007 21:04
Hosting and Backup Service...We all get many Virus warnings in our emails. In most cases from well meaning friends, but unfortunatly we also get them from people just out to cause alarm.
The first thing I recommend doing when you receive a virus warning , no matter who sent it to you, is the following.
_____1. Go to www.symantec.com
_____2. Next click on the arrow on the left hand box of the two you see at the
_______top right of the page and select Viruses and risks from the drop
_______down menu.
_____3. Copy and past the Virus name given in the email into the right hand
_______box at the top right of the page.
_____4. Now click on the arrow at the right of this box.
_____5. When the search results are displayed look at the list and select what
_______looks like the most relevant result and click on its title.
_____6. You should now have a page, which will tell you if it is a real virus or a
_______Hoax.
If it’s a real virus by all means pass it on to your friends but include the url of the page that you found on Symantec and tell them to go and check the details.
If it is a Hoax, reply to your informant and send them the link telling them it is a Hoax and give them a copy of these instructions along with a recommendation to always check before passing such information.
The reason people start these hoax mails is to further tie up the Internet email system with yet more useless emails being sent along with the millions of useless spam mails that are sent out daily.
Be safe on the Internet and always check. Never assume its True, just as you should never assume it’s another Hoax.
Jul 22nd 2007 21:04
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Comments
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Patricia Knapps
 Gift shop ownerThank you for that information, I will take your advice and use it. Pattie Jul 22nd 2007 21:16 |
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Bj aka Bill Brown
Hosting and Backup Service providerhi Lynn, No problem, I have been using this method for so long I really cant remember but it must be well over 4 years now. There are other sites you can do the same checks with, I just happen to use Symantec as its an easy one to remember and type in theaddress bar. I dont use their software and nor do I recomment it but their Viruses and Risks data base is first class. Bj Bill Brown aka Bjantiques http://www.eresourceheaven.com Jul 22nd 2007 22:00 |
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Bj aka Bill Brown
Hosting and Backup Service providerHi Pattie, Glad to be of service, more so in that you acknowleged that it is of use to you and that you will be one less person that will be blindly passing on unchecked information. Bj Bill Brown aka Bjantiques http://www.eresourceheaven.com Jul 22nd 2007 22:03 |
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Brian Ockert
Bj Thanks for the advice in this post. It will be very useful in the future as we often get emails in my place of work saying this or that is a hoax. It can be checked out without 400+ further emails being passed around clogging up the system. Regards Brian Jul 23rd 2007 16:46 |
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Thea Westra
 Adding Wings To Our Unique Life Journey!Yukky and sorry. Don't know what happened to that message. I think it's the long Google link! Here is the message copied again.... ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes, I often simply highlight and copy the heading or a main, distinguishing sentence in the hoax email and then drop that into a Google search. Then I open tinyurl.com and take the Google page address and make it a short url, then send it back to my friend and say they might like to take a look. :) For example, here's a hoax with which many of you may be familiar. Into a Google search, I entered the keywords: ~ "microsoft will pay you email forward hoax" ~ That came up with this Google page: ~ http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=GGLD%2CGGLD%3A 2006-44%2CGGLD%3Aen&q=microsoft+will+pay+you+email+ forward+hoax&btnG=Search ~ Rather than sending this huge link to my friend, I shorten it at tinyurl.com and send them this link instead: ~ http://tinyurl.com/252mah ~ That way they get to see all the places this hoax is registered e.g. Symantec, Snopes, Urban Legends, TrendMicro etc. Namaste, Thea www.forwardsteps.com.au Jul 23rd 2007 19:47 |
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Bj aka Bill Brown
Hosting and Backup Service providerHi Thea, Link fixed and I removed the yukky post for you. Yes this is another good way to get the information back to the senders of hoax alerts. As I said Symentec is my personal preference. I know others prefer Snopes, Urban Legends, and TrendMicro. to name just a few. The important thing is that we do check and pass back the information and tell the sender how to check them selves and also encourage them to pass it back to where they got it from and they do the same so it is eventually passed all the way back to the originator. The reason I send people directly to my search result is they can see the result straight away, where as by going to the Google listing they then have to click through again to another site to read the full information. If we want people to get important information we should make it as easy as possible, as the tendency these days is if they have to click too many times they wont follow through. Bj Bill Brown aka Bjantiques http://www.eresourceheaven.com Jul 23rd 2007 20:08 |
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Thea Westra
Adding Wings To Our Unique Life Journey!Thank you so much for fixing that posting, Bill. Yes, I see your point regarding people needing to click more than once. I do what I do because like the idea of them seeing a page full of places that the hoax is listed (on the Google search page). They may then not need to click further. An eye-full of the descriptions listed at http://tinyurl.com/252mah is plenty to convince. It also "trains" my friends to simply do a quick Google search before sending something. Many people have easy access to a Google search bar e.g. Google Desktop, regardless of level of internet experience. Not everyone has a Bookmarks Toolbar at top of their browser pages, to which they can add Sophos or MicroTrend etc. for quick access. In addition, what's listed on one site (e.g. Snopes) may not yet be listed on another (e.g. Sophos), so with the Google they may have greater chance of seeing that the email they intend to send, is listed as a hoax. OK, that was fun....back to work now! :) Cheers, Thea www.forwardsteps.com.au Jul 23rd 2007 20:48 |
Bj,
Thank you so much for checking out the one that someone let me know about, and letting me know it was a hoax. And thank you for going the extra step and posting this thread to inform others what they can do when they receive one or read about one. This link will be going in my favorites. Thank you again, Lynn
Jul 22nd 2007 21:15