Afternoon.
A lovely weekend. I did middle-aged, middle-class things like getting sunburned while cleaning my bike and cutting the grass with my shirt off. It’s still nice now, and I didn’t really want to come back from lunch.
I had a phone call from Mum this morning about an email she’d had from a friend telling her to delete a file from her computer because she was infected with the Teddy Bear virus. Forward on to all the people in your address book, the usual yadayadayada.
Happily she phoned me BEFORE she did all this, and I could tell her it was a hoax.
I almost think that these hoaxes are worse than actual viruses. As long as there are naïve, technically ignorant people around they will carry on circulating the Net in some form or other. Most viruses and hoaxes are now circulated through social engineering; Current affairs or somesuch.
The only thing we can do is try and educate wherever possible. Get a virus scanner, there are a number of free ones. Don’t open attachments from people you don’t know and avoid sending or recieving executable attachments. Don’t trust your friend’s word for it that they’ve got a virus. Check it out on a virus website from a virus scanner vendor.
Here are some:
http://www.f-secure.com/virus-info/hoax/
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.html
http://vil.mcafee.com/hoax.asp
http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/hoaxes/
I recommend the f-secure one, because it’s easily searchable. Read about viruses, and don’t take anything you get sent in an email at face value. If you think you’ve got a virus, update your scanner (usually free) and do a full scan. You won’t be getting emails about any virus that the vendors don’t know about.
Right, that’s my rant over for now. I’m afraid that’s all it is. If you want to know more about hoaxes/viruses Google! Or browse around one of the sites I listed just now.
Happy Birthday Tony, you scumbag.