E-mail viruses

By now, you've probably picked up an e-mail message reading something like this: "Opening an e-mail called GREAT OPPORTUNITY will delete your hard drive! Microsoft has just released an announcement on its Web site and IBM is asking people to e-mail everyone they know. This virus is extremely dangerous and anti-viral software won't work on it!"

Being compassionate people, most of us, at least once, have promptly forwarded a message like this to everyone in our address list. In fact, odds are that the message has already come with hundreds of names and addresses already embedded in it.

But &ldots; at the moment there is no such thing as an e-mail virus that can delete your hard drive simply by your opening it. (Opening an attachment can infect you, of course, but you already run all those past anti-viral software anyway, right?)

Some people believe that the real "virus" is the endless amount of e-mail traffic these messages generate. Others speculate that they are concocted to fight spam by claiming that the spammer's subject header is a hint of a virus. The really paranoid notice that those huge cc list are a spammer's paradise.

Here are the key identifiers in an e-mail hoax:

1.they ask you to forward the message to everyone you know;

2.they warn you about specific subject lines;

3.they claim that the virus can erase everything on your hard drive;

4.they are said to be brand new, or especially malicious; and

5.they say that a respected authority has issued a warning.

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