You have got hoax virus `alert'

By Anand Parthasarathy

KOCHI, MAY 31. An e-mail being chain-mailed by well-meaning but misguided PC users worldwide warns of dire consequences if an executive file is not deleted from the PC's Windows operating system by tomorrow (June 1).

In fact, the so-called virus named `sulfnbk.exe' is a harmless and legitimate utility of Microsoft Windows that is used to shorten long file names. And deleting it could render this and related things inoperable.

It will then become necessary to reinstall Windows.

The e-mail that has been spreading like wildfire worldwide, including India, arrived in the mailbox of a staffer in the Kochi office of The Hindu yesterday.

The message said: ``... The virus software cannot detect it. It will become active on June 1 2001 and it wipes out all files and folders on the hard drive. To find it and get rid of it do the following.....''

However, when colleagues referred to the website of Norton Antivirus, they learnt that the warning was a hoax.

It is believed to have originated in Brazil and early versions were written in Portuguese, before English language mailings appeared in India.

It is true that anti-virus softwares, such as Norton or McAfee, will not detect sulfnbk.exe as a virus - for the simple reason that it is not a virus. Computer industry analysts say that it is a perverse twist to the sorry saga of computer viruses: gullible users are made to destroy their system software.

This is, obviously, easier than having to write a virus programme.

The current hoax is believed to be related to the recent proliferation of another virus called `W32.Magistr' which propagates through e-mail attachments.

This correspondent received the virus a week ago in a mail that was disguised as a press release from an IT company, with a photograph attached.

Though the anti-virus software installed on the desktop flashed an alert, when the attachment was opened it was too late to prevent the malicious programme from entering the e- mail address book and re-propagating to all the names listed.

This underlines the importance of not opening any e-mail attachment these days - even if the sender is a very familiar name - unless the anti-virus software has certified it as clean.

Since the W32. Magistr virus has been travelling embedded in the sulfnbk.exe for some weeks now, many e-mail users assumed that deleting the latter was the right thing to so.

But the hoaxers seemed to have banked precisely on this fact to play their latest cruel trick.

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Section  : National
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