excerpted from LangaList Plus! Edition 2001-05-31....
The "SULFNBK" June 1st Virus Hoax
I've gotten many notes from readers who forwarded a chain letter to me
(usually along with 500 other unlucky recipients) that went something
like this:
Do you believe that a friend of mine sent me an alert and the
procedure that we have to follow for the possible infection of
SULFNBK.EXE . And I had checked, just to make sure.
An then... the file was there, hidden even of McAfee and
Norton, maybe waiting something to start work....
The original recipients of this note checked their systems and were
alarmed when they find SULFNBK.EXE there. Well, SULFNBK.EXE
file is a normal part of Windows that's used in managing long
file names (the file is usually found in in your C:\Windows\Command
folder). Antivirus routines don't detect the file because it's not a
virus. The "virus" warning is a complete hoax.
There is a worm that can arrive as an email attachment named SULFNBK.EXE,
but that has nothing to do with the current hoax. All the
major AV tools know how to handle that worm; and by now everyone should
know that you should never, ever---- EVER--- click on any email
attachment, no matter what it's named or whom it's from, without first
at least running it through an AV scanner. And in any case, the use of
the name SULFNBK.EXE is coincidental. The worm could have
been called any Windows file; there's nothing special about SULFNBK.EXE.
What's more, virus chain letters are almost always hoaxes: A good rule
of thumb is NEVER to forward any email just because it says "Urgent:
Pass this on to everyone!" or comes from a buddy. In fact, anytime you
get any email with a "pass this on to everyone!" in it, or a letter that
has been forwarded dozens of times, it's almost always (99.99999% of the
time) a hoax or scam designed solely to generate a chain letter--- that
is, to trick the gullible into perpetrating the hoax.
Don't be taken in! It only takes *literally* a minute to find out about
if any email about:
--supposed virus alerts (even if the email says they're "confirmed by
IBM, Microsoft, AOL and Oracle" or some such)
--pending legislation, including email surcharges and taxes
--sick/dying/missing children who need email or prayers
--body part theft rings
--free vacation giveaways
--free money or products from Bill Gates (or Disney or AOL or Nokia
or....) to those who forward the most emails
--foreign government workers who will pay you to let them move large
sums of money through your bank account
--or any of hundreds of similar chain letters.
These are ALL almost always pure, utter hoaxes and scams.
You can make yourself chain-letter-proof by taking literally about a
minute to check up on any claims made in chain letters. There are any
number of resources you can use, including:
Symantec Anti Virus Research Center at
symantec.com
McAfee Associates Virus Hoax List at vil.mcafee.com
Department of Energy Computer Incident Advisory Capability at
ciac.llnl.gov
Debunking online and email hoaxes: kumite.com
The Urban Legends Web Site at urbanlegends.com
Urban Legends Reference Pages at snopes.com
Datafellows Hoax Warnings at
europe.datafellows.com
ALWAYS take a few seconds to verify the truth of any chain email like
this, and then tell your friends ONLY if it proves true. Otherwise,
you're not doing your friends any favors, and in fact, you're just
helping the hoaxers to waste people's time and bandwidth.
Additional resources to strengthen your BS detectors:
How To Evaluate Internet Research Sources at
virtualsalt.com
How To Evaluate Information Sources at
vuw.ac.nz |
