Recently, I received an email from a client as to whether an email warning about a virus was valid. A quick search on a key line, “e-mail with a Power Point presentation ‘Life is Beautiful’”, yielded enough results to confirm its uselessness:
http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/life.asp
http://www.hoax-slayer.com/life-is-beautiful-virus-hoax.html
Apparently this particular chain email has been circulating since 2002 freaking people out along the way. Fantastic. Clog up the internet with even more useless garbage. Thanks. But you can’t blame the sender, really, considering you probably know the person it came from, and they had your best interests in mind, but were unfortunately unknowing. On a positive note, you can BREAK THE CYCLE!
Take a look at this page to get an idea of what to look for that will help you identify what they tend to look like and contain. Knowledge is power, or in this case, less garbage in your friend’s inboxes.
If you want to check into whether a particular email is a hoax, check www.hoax-slayer.com and www.snopes.com. The second one is great for all sorts of things, especially urban legends (actually, it is interesting enough to browse for a while, so make some time for it 
).
So, if you get some sort of email warning about a virus or whatever, especially if it’s a forward, look into it before you panic. It’s probably nothing at all.
-g
Posted by Greg 