Poor Dog

Poor Dog email hoax virus is very similar to the famous Good Times hoax.

Subject line of this email hoax virus:

VIRUS WARNING.

Part of the text of the hoax reads as follows:

If you receive an e-mail entitled "PLEASE HELP POOR DOG. Win a Holiday" DO NOT OPEN IT. It will erase everything on your hard drive. Forward this letter out to as many people as you can. This is a new and very malicious virus and not many people know about it. This information was announced yesterday morning from Microsoft, please share it with everyone who might access the Internet.

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.