Have you fallen for a virus hoax recently?

While viruses and worms cause the most damage to home PCs and corporate networks, hoaxes can be equally irritating.

To try to help you sort the real threats from the bogus, Sophos has come up with a list of the top ten hoaxes it recorded during October 2002.

They are:

1 JDBGMGR (35.7 per cent)
2 Budweiser frogs screensaver (6.5 per cent)
3= Meninas da Playboy (4.4 per cent)
3= Hotmail hoax (4.4 per cent)
5= A virtual card for you (3.3 per cent)
5= Bill Gates fortune (3.3 per cent)
7 Frog in a blender/Fish in a bowl (2.7 per cent)
8 WTC Survivor (2.6 per cent)
9 JS/Exploit (1.7 per cent)
10 Applebees Gift Certificate (1.6 per cent)

To lessen the impact of these bogus viruses warnings, Sophos advises all businesses to implement an anti-hoax policy.

This should specify that all virus warnings, whatever their source, are centrally coordinated by one member of staff who is responsible for confirming whether they are real or fake.

Sophos has made available a free, constantly updated information feed for intranets and websites which means users can always find out about the latest viruses and hoaxes. See http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/infofeed/