If you receive a mail from your close buddy telling
that Mars will reach the closest to Earth on 27th
of August 2006, making it appear as big as moon, don’t
get carried away. Because the day Mars appears that
big, it will be catastrophe on earth as the red planet’s
gravity would alter the Earth's orbit and raise terrible
tides. And of course no reasons to worry of it, as
this is just another hoax mail on its come back trail!
The mail claims that when Mars comes within 34.65
M miles of Earth on August 27, it will appear as big
as the moon for naked eyes and you will have to wait
till year 2287 for a similar spectacle next time.
It exhorts you to pass on the news to your friends
as this marvel doesn’t come too often in a life
time.
Security experts at
MicroWorld Technologies, quoting the information
available on the NASA website, said this hoax originally
started in July 2005, when Mars was to come close
to earth in the month of August. The spammer has just
changed the year and started spreading it once again
the same time around this year. Some reports even
suggested that a similar one was doing rounds in July
2003, when Mars had the closest encounter with our
planet onthe 27th of July 2003.
“It’s in the Human psychology to believe
sensational gossip told in a rather convincing manner
with some statistics and numbers thrown in to corroborate
it,” observed Sunil Kripalani, Vice President,
Global Sales and Marketing, MicroWorld
Technologies. “Once the spammer achieves
the first level of proliferation by mass mailing it
to thousands, the next level is rather easier with
the chain mail syndrome taking over. And when you
get it from a close friend with reasonable intelligence,
there isn’t much to distrust about it as well!”
There are hundreds of thousands of chain mails doing
rounds on the Internet at any given point of time,
spreading urban legends, filthy gossip and at many
times, highly harmful information. Fear psychosis
caused by mails like these can create wide-spread
panic, while repercussions of many malicious messages
can have severe social and financial impacts too in
a wired society.
Spam mails, scam mails and chain mail hoaxes account
for more than 90% of the total email traffic on the
World Wide Web, says a recent study. These messages
choke your bandwidth by pushing the legitimate communication
to a corner, occupy large storage spaces and make
a severe dent in productive time of organizations.
“Chain mails are just another breed of menace
on the web. To counter the spread of such mails, enterprises
should protect their business communication with an
effective, intelligent spam control system that uses
a combination spam filtering techniques. Also, user
awareness should be raised so that they can identify
and stop these mails, to break the chain before it’s
too late,” pointed out Sunil Kripalani.
MicroWorld
MicroWorld (www.mwti.net
) is the developer of the world's first Real-Time
Anti-Virus and Content Security software eScan
for desktops and servers. Its communication security
software,
MailScan is the first comprehensive e-mail
scanner for your SMTP/POP3 Mail Server. MicroWorld
Winsock Layer (MWL) is the revolutionary technology
underlying these products, powering them to several
certifications and awards by some of the most prestigious
testing bodies, notable among them being Virus Bulletin,
Checkmark, TUCOWS, Red Hat Ready, and Novell Ready.
Combining their powerful scanner with MWL technology,
MicroWorld solutions provide a Real-Time Proactive
security for your systems. For network security of
enterprises, eConceal Firewall is the latest powerful
offering from MicroWorld.
To learn more, kindly visit http://www.mwti.net.
