How to Spot a Virus Hoax

Part 4. Hoax Heuristics

(Common sense, isn't)

Now we can define some rules to help us detect hoaxes generically. To summarize what we've seen, a hoax will have some combination of the following factors (but not necessarily all of them):

• It's a warning message about a virus (or occasionally a Trojan) spreading on the Internet. (Some even describe a "Trojan horse virus." There is no such thing.)
• It's usually from an individual, occasionally from a company, but never from the cited source.
• It warns you not to read or download the supposed virus, and preaches salvation by deletion.
• It describes the virus as having horrific destructive powers and often the ability to send itself by e-mail.
• It usually has lots of words in all caps and loads of exclamation marks.
• It urges you to alert everyone you know, and usually tells you this more than once.
• It seeks credibility by citing some authoritative source as issuing the warning. Usually the source says the virus is "bad" or has them "worried."
• It seeks credibility by describing the virus in specious technical jargon.