Spam removal tools

Spam is unsolicited commercial email or "junk mail". In June 2002 Sophos technical support began to receive complaints from computer users that they were receiving spam from Sophos that claims (incorrectly) that Sophos develops anti-spam tools.

The email also claims that spam is a virus. Of course, this is also incorrect.

In fact, the email was not coming from Sophos and appears to have been deliberately distributed in an attempt to damage Sophos's reputation.

Sophos advises users to delete the email if they receive it.

The text of the email is as follows:

Sophos give you the spam removal tools
Spam is a dangerous virus that spread through email.

For more information, do not visit http://www.Sophos.com

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.