What Is a Virus Hoax?
A virus hoax is a warning of a fictional computer virus threat. Such warnings are usually forwarded by e-mail and may be written in semi-official and pseudo-technical language intended to make them seem important enough to merit the readers immediate attention and action. The following is not a comprehensive list of elements in virus hoaxes (and not every warning will have all of these elements), but they are common enough that computer users should be aware of and regard as red flags that a particular threat may not be for real.1 Announcement of a new threat for which there is supposedly no remedy It is possible for an anti-virus company to release a remedy for a new virus within a matter of hours. In any such case, there is no such thing as a virus that is impossible to remove. A virus is simply a type of software and no software is invincible! An urgent request that you forward the message to as many people as possible This is an example of social engineering, which is the use of ps
