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On the opposite end of the spectrum, but potentially almost as damaging, are virus hoaxes. These emails may be just a prank to see how far and how fast someone can get an email distributed around the world, or they could be a diversion to get users to let down their guard and ignore legitimate alerts- a sort of ?boy that cried wolf? strategy.

One hoax that keeps coming back suggests that a file called jdbgmgr.exe that shows up with a teddy bear icon in Microsoft Windows is actually a virus file and that you should delete the file immediately and forward this message to everyone you know.


Unfortunately, jdbgmgr.exe is a legitimate Windows file that is used for Java applets. Deleting the file won?t render the system inoperable, but it will remove some functionality and you may experience problems running Java applets as you surf the Web.

There are some key pieces of evidence you can look for to indicate that an email may be a hoax. First and foremost, if it asks you to forward this message to everyone you know, odds are it?s a hoax. If it claims to be a virus alert from Microsoft, it is probably a hoax (Microsoft isn?t in the virus / antivirus business and does not distribute virus alerts).

If you receive an alleged virus alert from any source you wouldn?t normally receive such information from, you should always check it out first. If you are in a company, you should notify the network or information security administrator only (do not forward the message to all of your friends and co-workers). If you are a home user or don?t have access to a security administrator there are a number of web sites that catalog known virus hoaxes that you can check to be sure before alerting anyone.

Viruses, worms, Trojans and other malicious code are pretty much here to stay. To protect yourself and your computer from becoming a statistic you need to take certain simple precautions. It is also important that you keep your system from helping to spread any new threat. To do this, you need to run updated antivirus software, keep your system patched and updated and preferably run some sort of hardware or software firewall program. For more information on these basic security measures, read Security Basics in a Home Computing Environment and In-Depth Security.