There are a lot of viruses out there. But some aren’t really out there at all. Virus hoaxes are more than mere annoyances, as they may lead some users to routinely ignore all virus warning messages, leaving them vulnerable to a genuine, destructive virus.

Next time you receive an urgent virus warning message, be sure to check the list of known virus hoaxes.

Remember that virus writers can use known hoaxes to their advantage. For example, AOL4FREE began as a hoax virus warning. Then somebody distributed a destructive trojan attached to the original hoax virus warning!