Olympic Torch Hoax: A Spam Scam That Won't Scram

The Olympic Torch hoax is an email hoax that seems to make the rounds again and again over the past decade, changing a little each time. It has evolved so much since its reported beginnings in 2000 that it is currently almost unrecognizable.

An email hoax is a message that warns you that there is an email virus you should be wary of. These viruses really don't exist, and the messages are intended to make the recipients worry for no reason.

The Olympic Torch hoax began as an email message claiming that a virus was being circulated through email invitations. The hoax warned that anyone who opened the infected email would find an Olympic torch, and that this digital torch would literally burn up your computer’s main hard drive, the C drive. No virus or malware in existence can actually do this.

Other variations of this email claimed that the virus would erase your C drive, or that the virus targeted the "zero sector of the hard disk."

Later on, these hoax emails claimed that the existence of the virus had been verified by reputable sites such as Snopes.com and Hoax-Slayer.com in an attempt to convince recipients that the the virus was real because these sites had ostensibly found that it was real. Of course, these sites had nothing to do with the malware or verifying that it was real. In fact, these sites actually warned web users about the Olympic Torch hoax rather than the virus it was alleged to contain.

Some emails claiming that Microsoft, McAfee and CNN were responsible for spreading the Olympic Torch virus also surfaced. Furthermore, the email claimed that the media had proclaimed the virus to be the "most destructive virus ever." This, too, was untrue.

Later on, an additional warning was added to Olympic Torch hoax emails. The warning stated that attachments called "postcard" also carried the virus.

Later still, the warning was changed to include any email with the subject line "Merry Christmas." This particular ruse cautioned that if you open the email, your computer would be burned to cinder by a Yule log rather than an Olympic torch.

Further along the Olympic Torch hoax timeline, the emails were translated into different languages such as Hebrew and German and sent out.

The Olympic Torch emails continue to evolve and show no signs of stopping.

Unfortunately, your antivirus software can't spare you from encountering this online problem. These emails are sent by individuals who want nothing more than to spread mischief. After a while, innocent people start believing the emails and forwarding them to friends and family, who then forward the message to more people.

When you come across an email like this, simply ignore it and delete it, whether you think it may be real or not. You don't need an email hoax to keep you informed about how to keep your computer safe from internet security risks. All you need is the understanding that you shouldn't open any emails from senders you don't know along with solid antimalware and antivirus software installed and running on your machine to catch anything that might slip through.

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