On the Lookout for Virus Hoaxes

ByDaniel Gottilla

On the Lookout for Virus Hoaxes

Most of the time, businesses are on the lookout for ways to keep viruses out of their systems, not the other way around. From firewalls to email restrictions, the tools company leaders put in place have become fairly commonplace in today’s work environment.

However, there is another side to virus protection: virus hoaxes. While virus hoaxes take on a variety of forms, they are almost always warnings about hoaxes that don’t actually exist. Instead of sending you an email containing a dangerous link, these types of emails either send you a warning about a virus that isn’t really a virus at all, or they’ll send you a “virus” or “tracking option” that will allow you to forward a message on in hopes of receiving some sort of unrealistic prize.

As far as information security goes, virus hoaxes are fairly benign. After all, it never hurts to be over-cautious about potential viruses, and forwarding on a message that tells you Bill Gates is going to give you $1,000 free of charge doesn’t do much more than make you look like a fool.

This doesn’t mean virus hoaxes can’t affect your business, however. For example, spending too much time on these types of emails can be bad for employee productivity, and having access to personal emails like this during work time is one of the leading causes of virus problems in the first place. Another major problem is that some clever virus designers actually turn virus hoaxes into real problems. A hoax virus warning might be enough of a challenge for someone to attach a destructive trojan and see what kind of damages ensue.

At the end of the day, the most important thing for workplace information security is to remain on top of what your network – and your employees – are capable of. No matter what your business is, your best bet is to keep protective barriers in your infrastructure and incorporate policy management that limits the amount of access employees have to potentially damaging emails.