Recently, I received an email from my mother with the subject line “Fwd:FW: Computer Virus”. I love my mother and I trust my mother, but I can’t always trust her email. Just seeing this subject line shot up the red flags, but being a good daughter, I was curious to see what it was about and if it was legitimate.
Instead of opening it, I used Print Preview in Thunderbird email client and saw that it was forwarded to a multitude of people who forwarded it to another multitude of people. Now, I think this works to view the email content without showing as opened, but I can’t be sure.
It contained a message warning of some virus with a Hallmark greeting. It even sounded more credible because it mentioned some person verifying the threat at snopes.com. This is scary. Even if it was a legitimate warning about a virus being passed around, the fact that it was forwarded to so many other people, makes it susceptible to picking up other viruses on any of those people’s machines.
Best thing to do…delete, delete, delete. And make sure that at least your incoming email is being scanned by your antivirus software. I still love you Mom.
