Customer Support PageRecognizing a Virus HOAX from the REAL Thing!The following are are a few tips in recognizing a
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| Occassionally everyone gets a message about a computer virus
that will "...erase everything on your hard drive" or "...render your
computer useless", etc., etc., etc. Well, please DO NOT fall for these HOAX messages that tell you to "Send this message to everyone you know." Most messages ARE truely just hoaxes designed by spammers knowing that if everyone forwards these to all their friends, and to all of their freinds and so on, and so on, etc., the message will eventually get back to them and "Wah-Lah" they have a complete listing of email addresses that are current and real. Please DO NOT forward these messages. As a rule of thumb: Have you ever heard the expression "JUST SAY 'NO' "? Well, say "NO" to this one too. The file will still load but without the MACRO. MACROS are usually just a series of shortcuts that the developer or originator of the file created to save themselves some key strokes. They do not affect you being able to read the files with YOUR program. Most ALL other files DO NOT contain viruses. Why? Because they are opened by programs that you already have on your computer. Your existing virus detector should already have cleaned your computer and have a virus protection running in the background. So your computer SHOULD be clean already. An email message is pure plain old ascii text and has No embedded programs in it. A simple email message CANNOT contain a virus. Now lets talk about attachments: I. Most attachments that are the following: II. The second type of attachment is the "DATA FILE", such as: One last note for those folks that forward jokes. When you forward a message that has already been forwarded several times already, you are essentially doing TWO things. 1. You are making the receiver of your forwarded message go through a lot of clicks to
finally get to the meat of the message. Many people get tired of these and may just just
delete them to avoid doing all that damn clicking. Remember, everyone does NOT use
the same email programs. Some are easier to use than others and not everyone is as
computer literate as you are. (For you computer novices: A "Spammer" is someone who sends out mass mailings of unsolicited email, i.e., junk mail. ------------------ The best advice I can give is to forward the meat of the message only and not all the other forwards. It will make your receivers happier.
Just rmember that the most important safeguard against Computer Viruses is, of course, a good up-to-date virus Protection Program running such as Norton Antivirus. NAV9X.EXE |
