Irina

Irina was a publicity stunt gone wrong. The name is actually the title of a novel by the science fiction author Steven Baxter, which is set in the web; his publishers, Penguin Books, sent out a press release in the form of a spoof virus warning, obviously modelled on Good Times. A second press release, telling the reader that the previous was just a publicity stunt, didn't arrive quickly enough to stop recipients taking the warning seriously.

Like Good Times, the Irina spoof claims that a virus is spreading through email. No such virus exists, and in any case it would be impossible for it to work in the manner described.

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.