County Kerry

This hoax appears to have been started as a prank, but has caused genuine concern amongst some users. Here is the text of the hoax:

IRISH VIRUS:

Hello there, I'm a virus from County Kerry.

Please forward this email to the contacts in your personal address book.

Then delete all the files on your hard disk.

That's grand, thanks very much.

Many virus hoaxes:

• falsely claim to describe an extremely dangerous virus
• use pseudo-technical language to make impressive-sounding (but impossible) claims
• falsely claim that the report was issued or confirmed by a well-known company
• ask you to forward it to all your friends and colleagues

As usual, you are urged not to pass on warnings of this kind, as the continued re-forwarding of these hoaxes simply wastes time and email bandwidth.

It is possible that you may receive a hoax via email with a file attached. Obviously, such file attachments should be treated with caution as they may be virus infected. Sophos recommends deleting virus hoax emails, whether they contain file attachments or not.

Sophos suggests a policy to help prevent hoaxes from spreading in your company.