From time to time I get emails warning me about a virus email that is going around. These emails generally state that the emails came from one of the big Anti-Virus companies like Symantec (usually referred to as Norton) or McAfee.

Something to remember when you get these emails

Antivirus companies don’t release warning emails - When Symantec, McAfee, Grisoft or any other antivirus company detects a new virus they don’t send out emails asking you to inform your contacts. So if you get an email saying this you can know for sure it is a hoax.

That is the key point really because most of the hoax emails i see have that comment in them to any unsuspecting user it gives the email some sense of importance!

If you are still unsure if the email you have got is about a real virus or not then open up http://www.google.co.uk and search for the virus name followed by the word “virus” and if it really is a virus then one of the big antivirus companies will have a page about it on thier site and it will appear high in the google rankings.

No Page..chances are, there is no virus!

By sending these “virus warnings” around it is common for people to just hit forward and then send it to all their friends.  This means you are sharing all your contacts with however many people the email gets forwarded to! Because most people don’t use BCC (Blind Carbon Copy, which hides the addresses you send it to). Break the chain and just delete the email!

Make sure you have an Anti-Virus Checker installed like AVG Anti-Virus and ensure it runs regularly and is up to date! If you don’t have one checkout AVG from www.avguk.com. Or get in touch for some advice.

Thanks for reading