Where do Virus warnings REALLY originate?

[10ClarionSt]

Every so often, I receive an email from people in my contact list that advises of the latest, most dangerous virus ever, and not to open any emails with various titles. It says that MS, Macafee etc have declared these viruses to be deadly to anyones' computer and they will burn and destroy the hard drive if opened. If that is the case, why don't Macafee, and MS issue the warning themselves? I've never had a warning notice from any of these companies telling me about certain viruses, so how do the warnings become public knowledge? Or am I the only one not receiving them?

[Androcles]

These go round and round the web, usually forwarded on to blast email lists by people who are not aware that these are generally hoaxes. You can see the "same old" coming round again, sometimes slightly altered to update the message, but with the same theme. Thye often send them out to an open email list instead of doing Blind Copy, thus exposing yet another raft of email addresses to spammers!

I suggest that people check any suspicious ones on Hoax Slayer .... http://www.hoax-slayer.com/

[RJUKL]

These are invariably spoof warnings designed to clog up the Internet by being forwarded to eveyone of a person's email list. You can check whether it is a genuine warning (almost never by the way) by googling it and you will then see that it is to be deleted asap.

[karenmac60]

Another good site to check them on www.snopes.com