It sounds like the newest twist in a second-rate thriller: Just when you were lulled into thinking it was a harmless prank, the killer virus attacks.
A hoax email warning people that their PCs might contain a virus duped an untold number of people into deleting the sulfnbk.exe file from their hard drives recently.
But now some computer users are receiving another email with "sulfnbk.exe" in the subject line -- and this time it may actually contain a harmful virus.
People who have received the virus say that launching the attached application lets loose a worm that could do substantial harm to the user's computer and to the machines of everyone on their email lists.
"My concern is that because of the original hoax, people will have their guard down where this file is concerned," a system administrator wrote in an email message.
The company's anti-virus software caught the worm on a worker's computer.
Antivirus experts say the sulfnbk.exe file is safe and does not contain a virus. Instead, a second attachment in the same email contains the harmful W32Magistr@MM virus.
The virus, dubbed "Magistrate," has a variety of official file names that include numbers before the @ symbol.
First detected March 13, Magistrate files may also be named W32Magistr.24876@mm.
Most anitvirus software detects and destroys Magistrate before it harms users' computers, but letting Magistrate loose could have disastrous consequences.
Security experts at Symantec rate it a four on a scale of 1-5 for its potential danger, which includes system crashes and the release of confidential information.
The self-propagating worm infects Windows files and sends itself to all addresses in the Outlook/Outlook Express email folders, the "sent items" file from Netscape and the Windows address book.
Although it picks random copy from infected users' hard drives, Symantec cautions that the virus could send confidential Microsoft Word documents to others on the user's email list.
Email sent from machines infected with Magistrate may have up to two attachments, as well as randomly generated subject lines and message bodies.
how do i get rid of the w32/magistr@MMvirus? i know i have it...several people are sending back emails that i never sent, including people i've never heard of....please help....