Know This: E-mail Hoaxes, Authorities to Reference, Firewalls

I received an e-mail today "warning" about the "postcard virus". I became unimpressed at the large quantity of people that continue sending this e-mail without verifying its validity. After completing some simple searches through Google's search engine, I found many articles dating back to 2001, identifying this e-mail as a hoax.

• Urban Legends at About.com http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_postcard_virus.htm
• Hoax-Slayer http://www.hoax-slayer.com/postcard-virus-hoax.shtml
• CNET Forums http://forums.cnet.com/5208-6132_102-0.html?threadID=284646
• Truth or Fiction http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/a/a-card-for-you.htm
• Anti-virus Software at About.com http://antivirus.about.com/od/emailhoaxes/p/postcard.htm
• Break the Chain http://www.breakthechain.org/exclusives/postcardvirus.html
  
• Perry Internet Consulting http://blog.perryweb.com/?p=148
• Snopes http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/postcard.asp
• Sophos http://www.sophos.com/security/hoaxes/sectorzero.html
• Winferno http://articles.winferno.com/antivirus/postcard-virus/
• Norton Community http://community.norton.com/norton/board/message?board.id=nis_feedback&thread.id=1310
  
• Virus Busters http://virusbusters.itcs.umich.edu//hoaxes/virtual.html

When this e-mail is continually re-forwarded, precious time and email bandwidth are wasted. This is disadvantageous for a company.

Sophos recommends this policy to avoid hoaxes.

• Don't Fall for a Virus Hoax http://www.sophos.com/pressoffice/news/articles/1999/11/va_hoaxes.html#prevent

Check the Authority that the author references in this case McAfee, Microsoft, and CNN. Also the major firewall vendors post the current virus threats on their individual sites.

• McAfee http://www.mcafee.com/us/threat_center/default.asp
• Symantec (Norton) http://www.symantec.com/norton/security_response/threatexplorer/index.jsp
• Zone Alarm http://smartdefense.zonealarm.com/tmpl/body/virus/sdrc_virusMain.jsp
  
• AVG http://www.avg.com/us-en/top-threats

The e-mail also referenced Microsoft's authority.

• Microsoft http://www.microsoft.com/security/portal/

CNN was also referred to. Here is the search for "postcard virus" within CNN.

• http://search.cnn.com/search.jsp?query=postcard%20virus&type=news&sortBy=date&intl=false

Consumer search lists the top Firewalls

• http://www.consumersearch.com/firewalls/best-pc-firewalls

These are two free Firewall providers

• http://personalfirewall.comodo.com/
• http://free.agnitum.com/