Watch out for possible virus hoaxes and email scam

There are many different hoaxes and scams out there on the internet today. Certain individuals believe they will be able to make a quick buck, or gain some sort of infamy if they can come up with a hoax that people will believe and perpetuate or if they devise a scam that people believe enough to send money to. Some of these hoaxes can also be dangerous. For example, there have been, and continue to be several versions of a virus hoax email scam.

This scam includes an email that warns the recipient of a new virus that has just been discovered and offers to update the recipient's computer with an attachment (which is said to be an OS patch or virus definitions). Unfortunately, the attached file is itself a virus and SHOULD NOT BE EXECUTED.

The best way to avoid a potentially damaging hoax such as this is to have software protection installed on your computer. Virus protection software should be installed and updated with the latest virus definitions. These virus definitions should always be acquired from official channels (either via the virus definitions update feature of you particular antivirus software, or from the official website of your virus software vendor.

Never install virus definitions that you receive from a stranger in an email (or even from a friend in an email) and NEVER install virus protection or virus definitions from P2P services. Virus protection is one kind of software that you will  really regret pirating when you get an infected file that someone 'shared' as a joke.

The best thing to do is install the virus protection that came with your machine (or buy new virus software if you did not get any with your computer) and purchase a subscription for virus definition files. You can usually obtain between 1 to 3 years for a subscription to these virus definition files right from the virus software vendor who manufactures your antivirus software, and set it to update automatically without any interaction form you.

This is definitely the best way to have seamless worry free virus protection without having to remember to download files or install patches.

Learn More About:

Norton Antivirus : Trojan Removal : Worm Remover
Adware Eliminator : Spam Block Utility : Popup Stoppers : Freeware Firewall