What is the difference between a real virus and a hoax?
A virus hoax is a report of a fictional virus. These are often sent out as emails requesting that you forward them on to as many people as possible to stop the spread of the fictional virus. These virus hoaxes create lots of unwanted email messages for the people who receive them and also may serve to spread rumors about companies, products and services. Help stop the spread of virus hoaxes by checking the legitimacy of the emails before passing them on. Passing on these hoaxes only helps to spread incorrect information. McAfee’s course of action for these hoaxes is to simply delete them. McAfee maintains a list of virus hoaxes on their website. Information about these hoaxes is also contained there. Please use it as a reference before passing on emails about viruses. Here is a link that lists many common virus hoaxes that might show up in your mailbox: http://vil.mcafee.com/hoax.
