Malicious Mobile Code

Removing and Preventing Hoax Viruses

Luckily, removal is easy and usually no computer damage is done, although this is not always the case. The Sulfnbk.exe virus hoax was the first hoax virus message successful in getting people to delete legitimate system files. Still, there are steps you can take to quickly lessen a hoax warnings impact and prevent their spread.

Let Others Know It Is a Hoax

If you receive a hoax warning message from a friend, send back a gentle reply letting him know that the message was a hoax and not to forward it along to others. Here’s an example template I send hoax forwarders:

Thank you for sending me the “possible” rogue program alert. However, the message you sent was a hoax. The message either contains misleading statements, can’t technologically happen, or is untruthful in some other way. It is the hoax author’s intent to fool as many people as he can and dupe them into spreading it around the world. In the future, if you are not sure if an email is a hoax message, you can check many sources including:

http://www.cert.org/other_sources/viruses.html

http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.hmtl

http://www.hoaxkill.com

Please let everyone you sent the hoax message know that it was a hoax message and can be ignored. Don’t worry, it happens to us all.

Sincerely,

Mother Grimes

Sometimes I send back my boiler-plated reply to everyone that was sent the hoax email; other times I just reply to the sender to lessen their embarrassment. Most corporations have a policy ...