The University of NSW is one of a number of local institutions to be hit with an hoax email virus that has recipients running scared Australiawide.
The hoax, which was originally written in Portuguese, warns against a virus contained in a file called SULFNBK.EXE that will be activated on June 1 unless it's removed.
In reality, SULFNBK.EXE is a harmless utility used to restore long file names on the Start menu.
"It's certainly making the rounds in Australia," Trend Micro online business manager Andy Liou said of the hoax. "But more importantly people are acting on it."
"People are taking it at face value and deleting that file," he added.
Whilst deleting this file will cause more of a cosmetic problem than a system failure - you probably won't be able to use long file names on a Windows 98 system - had users been fooled into deleting system files in a similar way, Windows could become inoperable, according to Liou.
"It proves that hoaxes are winning," Liou said. "It's one step more destructive because you're fooled into actually deleting something."
"All they [hoax writers] need to do is create the hoax and people do the damage themselves," he added.
Users should have a reliable source of virus information - either a recognised security organisation or a reputable virus vendor - and even then they should verify every single virus alert they receive, according to Liou.
"The danger is it's easy to write a virus hoax, you don't even need to be a programmer. Hoax writers prey on people's fear of viruses," Liou said.
"I'm shocked, amazed that people are so gullible out there."
Sad but hilarious.
I received a copy of the hoax yesterday, it had been CC'd to about 60 people with the following note:
"I found this virus on my hard drive (and 2 other machines in the office ), takes 2 minutes to remove"