When you reply to hoax e-mail, you give hackers the opportunity to obtain your IP address.
With this- and your password- a criminal could access files on your computer. Anti-virus software makes it harder to do this, but it's not foolproof.
Carole Theiralt from computer security firm Sophos says,
Users should never respond to an e-mail asking them to click on a link.
"Also watch out for warnings about potential scams, especially those advising you to pass the e-mail on. This could be a scam themselves."
