Are you prepared for an Internet hoax?

✍ Scribed by Gilbert Held

• Book ID: 101284757
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 69 KB
• Volume: 9
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1055-7148
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-1190(199911/12)9:6<345::aid-nem350>3.0.co;2-0

✦ Synopsis

Are You Prepared for an Internet Hoax?

W e all know by now that the Internet is filled with a variety of unscrupulous persons who take pleasure from creating misfortune for others. By now we have either directly experienced or know of a colleague that has experienced the effect of a virus. After all, if the Internet wasn't populated by persons that did not take satisfaction by creating misfortune for others, there would be a limited market for anti-virus solutions.

Just when we prepared our user community to cope with the threat of different viruses, spending corporate funds on special virus-checking software, and training employees in the most effective and efficient methods to use such software, we are now faced with a new and far more insidious threat to our organization. That threat is the Internet hoax.

Although malicious persons have posted unfounded rumors and phony accusations since the first bulletin board was established in Chicago during the early 1970s, today anyone with a Web composer software tool has the ability to create professional and realistic-looking news bulletins to include financial news. In fact, one such person posted a most professionally prepared announcement of the supposedly agreed-upon acquisition of one high-tech firm by another. This Web page was professionally composed to appear similar to an electronic news page format used by a leading distributor of financial news and was posted on a Web site which allows individuals the ability to create their own Web pages. The creative financial organization imposter placed at the top of his page the comment 'Just found this on . . .' and inserted what appeared to be a page copied from the financial organization. Within a short period of time the stock price of the company that was supposed to be acquired in the phony announcement rose by over 30% in value! While the repercussions of the phony announcement will eventually be played out in court, it is important to note that the ability to post fictitious information is common and not the exception to the rule. If your organization operates chat rooms, provides employees with the ability to post Web pages, or provides an electronic community service, you run the potential of having a degree of liability for the generation of false and misleading statements.

While I am not an attorney, according to several attorneys with whom I discussed this problem we do need to perform two key actions to minimize both our potential liability and the liability of our organization. First, a notice concerning the acceptable use of the facility we provide to include having the person using the facility first agree to the provisions of use is essential. Second, it is important to place persons on notice that their identity is verified in some manner, such as sending passwords to an email account operated by an organization that bills subscribers, and that their identity will be provided to a law authority upon an appropriate request. While we cannot and should not have to become cyber police, we should make it clear that we will do all in our power to help appropriate authorities identify cyber policy abusers.