Definition of Hoax (chain mail)

Hoax is a term that originates from the English language, and which means "trap"or"joke". On the Internet, it is directly associated with chains of email, those that circulate with false messages about requests for help before a person suffering from a illness, or in front of texts that warn of awards if we forward the email in question to our contacts. These are some of the possibilities that appear from a threat that has evolved in recent times, since the Hoaxes or email chains They have existed since the beginning of the network, not so much as a scam but as a joke. However, the evolution to which we refer in Definition ABC effectively intends to obtain economic compensation, and that is how we identify the concept of Phishing, very different from Hoax as to the dangerousness of its end.

Typical chains account for the closure of Hotmail, or that we will be given a mobile if we send the message that we receive to 15 of our friends, but the list is really wide, and although not too many cases of new hoaxes, those that circulated since the beginning of this phenomenon are still as annoying and effective as in those times, despite of the

exposition that have been given to them in the media and Informatic security.

The important thing is to understand that a antivirus not able to protect us from hoaxes on its own, since these strings do not carry any malicious code. Hoaxes are email messages that try to make us believe that what they say is true, and for that many rely on data that does not really exist, from phone numbers to images. Faced with this problem, the best defense is information, consulting the Internet itself, looking for a line of text from the email in a search engine to see if there are reports or not of the same, and thus, have a quick response about the veracity of the message, taking into account that this way as we are generally invited to resend it, those friends or family who have us on their agenda could do the same, considering that one deposits one confidence absolute in them. In this last scenario, and especially in the case of an order for solidarity, we have to understand that this kind of thing our friends would probably tell us in person.

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