Virus Alert

http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/whitehouse.asp

I have McAfee and no warning here!

The thing with all e-mails is not to open them if they look dodgy.

You can view message source, and skim through that, to see if there is a clue to where it's from.

If it is using a friends name it doesn't mean it is kosher. Delete it and then ask the named person if indeed they did send it.

The last one I got (on two occasions)  was allegedly from a friend who knew nothing about it, but it had been sent to several in her contacts log

The one I slipped up on, before I got savvy, was a message saying I had an e-card.

That cost me £60.00 for my expert to back up the files, remove it, and wipe the PC to it's as new settings.

That cost me £60.00 for my expert to back up the files, remove it, and wipe the PC to it's as new settings.

It can be so damn easy to open a virus but incredibly difficult to get rid of them. There are several decent forums out there where decent people give their time freely to help you clean up your PC. You shouldn't have to spend £60 for something like this if you can do it yourself for free.

It can also take days or even weeks to fully remove a nasty virus. For this reason I tend never to keep anything important and most of my data like poker hands are now backed up to the cloud. I'd much rather just spend an hour wiping my PC and starting from scratch than going via these forums. Important! If you do go this route, make sure you have a back up to the net as drivers can be a pig sometimes. Something silly like an ethernet driver may prevent you from accessing the net to find other drivers. Once you have access, the rest is a doddle.