04/ 01/ 2005
by Tamara E. Holmes
April 1 may be known for pranks, but one type of mischief can be less than amusing for your business – that of the electronic nature.
Each year, anti-virus software makers brace themselves for potential computer virus outbreaks from hackers who use April Fool's Day as an excuse to make their mischief. Pranksters may also use the day to send around mischievous junk e-mail messages to commemorate the nature of the day. Not only that, but also well-meaning individuals are prone to sending around prank e-mails on April Fool's Day, as well.
Whether good-hearted or ill-intentioned, electronic pranks can wreak havoc with your business, so it's a good idea to take a few measures to prevent them.
One of the best ways you can prepare is to make sure your anti-virus software is up-to-0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000date. Even if none of your employees opens an e-mail message April 1, you can still be affected by a computer virus that was received by someone at an earlier time and is triggered to do its damage on April Fool's Day. Anti-virus software will scan your business' computers to make sure no dormant viruses are waiting to erase your hard drives on that day, and it will scan all new e-mail messages for possible infection.
Even if your anti-virus software is up-to-date, it's still important to remind employees to be vigilant for computer viruses. Often, they'll come disguised in an e-mail that offers you some information in an attachment. That's because in order for most viruses to do their damage, they must be downloaded onto your hard drive or the attachment must be opened. Remind your employees to delete such e-mails if they're sent from someone they don't know.
Even if the e-mail comes from a friend or acquaintance, it's a good idea to avoid downloading or opening any unexpected attachments. Viruses often invade the e-mail address books of their victims and send themselves off to those people, so there’s a good chance that you could receive a virus from someone you know even if they didn't intend to send it. For that reason, suggest that employees contact people they know about unexpected attachments before they download and open them.
Since April Fool's Day promotes jokes, don't be surprised to see an increase in e-mail messages that are simply designed to pull people's legs.
While these e-mail messages may not seem to be harmful to your company, consider this: the extra e-mail traffic that is generated by these messages, as well as the additional traffic that is generated when your employees forward them on, can affect the performance of your network, particularly if it already transmits a lot of e-mail.
However, there's another situation that you want to prevent.
Some prank e-mails contain attachments of photos or video clips that may be violent or sexual in nature. Employees that pass such e-mails along in the spirit of April Fool's Day risk sexual harassment charges or worse, depending upon what's in the e-mail message. And since you're the employer and the e-mail was sent from your company, your business could be dragged through a legal quagmire as well.
To avoid this, make April Fool's Day a day to remind your employees what's expected of them when it comes to handling e-mail appropriately. After all, you want to make sure that at the end of the day, the joke is not on you.
