Why are Virus Hoaxes as Harmful as Real Viruses?
Virus hoaxes cost businesses time and money due to machines being damaged by employee’s who think they are helping the company out. They also put a toll on network resources due to the huge amount of emails sent spreading them. A typical worm can spread itself out at random infecting computers. Virus hoaxes are much better at spreading as they are spread by humans in logical patterns. When you do the math, the bandwidth used by virus hoaxes really adds up. If one person sends it to ten people and they send to ten people and so on, a huge pyramid effect can slowly take off. In countries that do not have the broadband technology of optic cables that richer countries have, this can take a serious toll on the network infrastructures. Hoaxes can also cause financial damage by utilizing untrue and malicious rumors about a company or its products. A few years ago a shampoo company lost millions of dollars in revenue when someone started a hoax email saying that the companies shampoo caused ca
