Virus Warnings : Advice Please

[Silliname]

My system has had, over the last 3 months, a couple of viruses: Pants!

However, over the same period I have had many, many virus alert notices. All of them entreat me to pass the information to as many people as possible. It doesn't take a genius to work out that this would be a great way to pass on a nasty!

My question is; What is the etiquete or best practise regarding these messages or warnings?

Silli

[fobotcso]

You don't say where your alerts are coming from. If they are by e-mail and you are using Outlook Express (which is my main experience) then delete before opening and reading and then delete from the "deleted itmes" folder as well. Never trust an email attachment from a sender that you do not recognise.

If the alerts are coming from virus protection software on your computer then it's doing its job and you should let it clean the infected file. I update my McAfee software weekly and if I forget it prompts me to go on-line to update. I've heard that Norton AntiVirus software is good but that it is intrusive and takes over your interface with the Operating System. I used to use Dr Solomon's but they were pushed out of the way by Network Associates (McAfee).

This is obviously important to you in business; in personal computing with masses of internet access I have seen only one virus in 14 years which was quickly cleansed by Dr Solomon's.

That's not to say there not out there though! http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/frown.gif

Good Luck! fob

[Pete O'heat]

Often these Emails are complete hoaxes. Their only purpose is to take up bandwidth and diskspace.

If you are concerned about any new viruses take a look at the website of a company that produces anti-virus software, these should have the latest information about real viruses and also these Email hoaxes.

Try http://www.sophos.com

[Mycroft]

As well as checking the AV vendors to see if they know about the 'virus' in question, it is probably worth checking out http://www.Vmyths.com/ , which lists virus hoaxes. Many of the AV vendors no longer send virus alerts because of the number of hoaxes. There are of course standard for avoiding virus exposure, ie never open an email (especially an attachment) from somebody you don't know (this is not 100% effective as your most trusted frien may be infected because they didn't have this policy); and always keep your AV software up to date (however it may take 2 weeks for the software company to provide defence against any individual virus by which time its already worldwide). The only 100% protection is to never download data/software into your computer (including via floppy) but this is impracticle to most people so the absolute advice remains: make backups of any data you don't mind losing

[Ham Phisted]

Rather than simply delete the offending e-mail, I would suggest that you use shift-delete. same effect as deleting from deleted items folder but reduces the chance of a fluff-up.

[blackadder]

I've been the recipient of well meaning warnings from folks on this board recently.
The info was nothing but a hoax.
If there is NO LINK to McAfee or Norton in the warning you can safely regard the warning as spurious.
As a Norton A-V user, I'm surprised that they don't have a mailing list such as McAfee's.
If you would like to subscribe to the McAfee.com Dispatch, click here. http://dispatch.mcafee.com/sub.asp?s=22

It's worth joining!