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1. The first and most obvious clue to a hoax (chain email) is that the email will contain a virus warning. Be aware that ALL emails that warn about viruses are hoaxes.

2. The second obvious clue to a hoax (chain email) is that the email will contain an urgent request to forward the false warning to all your friends.

3. The third clue is that the email will have come from a trusted acquaintance who is unaware of the existence or nature of hoaxes.

4. The fourth clue is the inclusion of names such as Norton and Microsoft in the email. To the gullible this seem to lend credence to the nonsense in the rest of the email.

5. The last clue is that your trusted acquaintance has sent the bogus warning to a great number of people. However, this might not be evident if the person has been considerate and used Blind Copies (Bcc).

Only one email warning is genuine, the one warning you that you should kill any email  purporting to come from UPS saying there was a problem with the delivery of a parcel. One vital feature of a hoax is missing from this email which shows it is a genuine warning, i.e,. there is no urgent request to forward the email to all your acquaintances. UPS does not send emails.

When you open the hoax email, do not click anything within the email and never respond to it.

Chain emails can provide a harvest of email addresses for spammers.

Do your friends a favour, refuse to send them hoax (chain) emails.

NOTE: If you use Norton anti-virus and you requested email alerts, any emails you get from Symantec Security Alert will be genuine. The clues to its genuine status are:- (i) you signed up to receive emails from Norton (ii)  the email has not come from an acquaintance, (ii) it does not ask you to send it to all your friends, (iii) it has only been sent to you and not to a large number of people.

When you open the chain email you will find a:-
(i) bogus warning in an email about a non-existent virus or trojan. Occasionally the email will contain instructions on how to locate the non existent virus on your computer and how to delete the virus. If you follow the instructions you will delete one of your important Windows files.
(ii) bogus warning about an existing virus (utterly pointless because your anti-virus program will detect and delete existing viruses anyway if it tries to enter your computer).
(iii) bogus warning about a non-existent emails which is supposed to contain a dangerous link.
(iv) bogus warning about a catastrophe which will affect your computer on a certain date.

Remember the main purpose of hoax (chain) emails is to persuade you to scare all your friends by forwarding the bogus warning to them.
In my opinion, tabloid journalist are paid to spread panic and despondency, it gives them a sense of power over people and events; the creators of these silly hoaxes are emulating such journalists. By forwarding hoax emails you are helping these idiots to spread alarm and despondency.

Some hoaxes have a secondary purpose i.e. to wreck your computer with the virus or a piece of malware embedded within the email or its attachment. By persuading you to send these emails to all your friends, you are deliberately spreading the danger to them.

Delete all hoax (chain) emails, select them, hold down the Shift key and tap the Delete key. 

When you open a chain email you will see the name of the
hoax threat, you can look up the name in the table below
The table contains the most common hoaxes, some show the release date in brackets.

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