The Hoax That Cried Virus
Computer virus hoaxes have been around for nearly as long as the first virus. One might even consider them a cottage industry – provided money was to be derived from them. The fact is, hoaxes have only one purpose in life and that is to spread to as many people as possible. Quite the same goal as viruses, some might say.
What many don’t realize is that just as viruses cost recipients, so do hoaxes. Case in point: should a well-meaning network administrator believe a particular hoax is true – and shutdown the mail servers as a precaution – the resulting loss of productivity will be just as high as if a real virus attack had occurred. Hoaxbusters, a site dedicated to eradicating the misconceptions regarding hoaxes and urban myths, takes another stance. They have determined the actual people hours involved with reading and forwarding just such erroneous information and prepared an eye-opening report on the high cost of believing. In the report, Hoaxbusters astutely points out that "if everyone on the Internet were to receive one hoax message and spend one minute reading and discarding it, the cost: would be something like: 50,000,000 people * 1/60 hour * $50/hour = $41.7 million". Hoaxbuster’s provocative look at the problem delves not only into the people-hour cost, but also into the toll taken on mail servers and network bandwidth. Indeed, after reading such an essay, it is easy to see that hoaxes are far from benign.
What is perhaps even more interesting about virus hoaxes is that they have fairly piggy-backed on the "real" virus tragedy. Just as the Morris Worm brought infamy to malicious worms in 1988, so did a hoax written by – you guessed it – Robert Morris in the same year. Since then, viruses and hoaxes have lived a rather peaceful co-existence. That is to say, peaceful for all but the unlucky recipients. Can one derive from this historical fact that hoax writers might possibly enjoy the same undeserved pleasure in their creation’s spread as virus writers seem to derive from their's?
The second problem hoaxes deliver is complacency. An individual, already embarrassed once for naively believing in a hoax, is much less likely to accept a valid virus warning as being true. Thus, a valid warning is met with disbelief and apathy. In such a case, a hoax can be considered a potential precursor to disaster.
With the inherent negativity of a hoax already established, what should we do when a hoax message is received? Do we succumb to potentially misguided helpfulness and forward it on as suggested? Probably not. Instead, experts such as those at Netadvisory suggest we do one of the following:
- Take a time out. If the e-mail sounds like a hoax, it probably is. Do not instantly react to save the world.
- Check out the facts. Visit one of the authoritative websites specializing in hoax and chain letter information. If the chain letter you received is not yet listed, wait 48 hours and check the information websites again.
- Informally check with other employees/friends (not by e-mail) if they have heard of this chain letter, hoax or virus.
And remember the sage advice from Hoaxbusters, "When in Doubt, Don't Send It Out".
- Check out the facts. Visit one of the authoritative websites specializing in hoax and chain letter information. If the chain letter you received is not yet listed, wait 48 hours and check the information websites again.
