Virus Hoaxes

Many times hoaxes can be as damaging as a real virus for several reasons. When a hoax is recieved through email it tells you to send the email to everyone you know. Sometimes the hoax is just an attempt to clog email servers with useless information about stuff that doesn't exist or has nothing to do with the company that is mentioned in the email.

Hoaxes such as emails stating the user will get a discount from a store for sending the email to a certain amount of people, or the one about Netscape and AOL merging and Microsoft developing a email tracking system. This one says that the user will get paid $5 for everyone that they send it to, then $3 for everyperson that those people send it to, and then a $1 for every person that those people send it to.

When this happens mail servers get clogged as people send it to everyone in their contacts. So if 1 person sends it to 10 people, those 10 send it to 10 each, soon it multiplies so much that email servers get bogged down making it difficult for legitimate mail to get through.

Another result of a hoax is damage to the users computer. Usually in the email is a professional looking set of instructions telling the user how to find a "virus" on their computer. The file that is listed as a "virus" is almost always a legitimate file used by the Operating System. Depending on which file was deleted will determine what kind of damage will occur to the users computer.