Virus Alerts

Q. A friend just sent you an email alert about a particularly nasty virus.  The message said to forward it to everyone you know.  What should you do?

A. Ignore it.  Almost every virus alert being passed via email is a hoax.  Passing hoaxes on only spreads fear of something that doesn't exist.  Also, there are several hoaxes which trick you into deleting an important file by telling you that the file is a virus.  Usually what it really is is a file needed by Windows to operate properly, and deleting it can cause some functions on your computer to stop working.

Please, before you ever pass on a virus alert, check for it in one of the hoax lists maintained by Symantec or McAfee.  Www.snopes.com is a good resource of all Internet hoaxes.  NOTE - some warnings will quote snopes.com to make their message appear legitimate, but if you read the snopes.com article carefully, you'll see it's about a different (but similar) issue than the one the alert is "warning" you about.