Aged Cyber Aunt

How to: Recover from a Virus Hoax

I had the following email conversation with an old friend now retired.

Old Friend to ACA
"I have just received a virus warning called sulfnbk.exe which has apparently infected the Gloucestershire Family History Society's Secretary's files and 2,000 members' files.
This virus attacks every addressee on anyone's address book, and sits on one's own system and all addressees' systems for 14 days. It then kills the hard drive."

ACA to Old Friend:
You've been had!! This is an old hoax.
Every time you get a virus warning from anyone, check with either/or:

www.mcafee.com
www.symantec.com (maker of Norton antivirus)
www.trend.com (makers of PC-cillin)
http://www.vmyths.com/
You will only have this problem once, because next time you check.

Old Friend to ACA
"Oh dear!!  Thanks for telling me. I am using Microsoft Word 2000.  Hope to hear what I can do about this.  I'll ask you first next time!

ACA to Old Friend:
Microsoft Word is the Application,

The Operating system is Windows 95 (one of 3 versions) 98 (one of 2 versions) ME, 2000, or NT.

From Mcafee:
<<SULFNBK.EXE is a Microsoft Windows utility that is used to restore long file names

In the event that SULFNBK.EXE was deleted erroneously, the following method may be used to restore the file from backup:

-- Windows 98 Instructions --

1) Click START - RUN, type SFC and hit ENTER
2) In the "Specify the system file you would like to restore" field, type
C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\SULFNBK.EXE and hit ENTER
3) In the RESTORE FROM field, type in the path to your WINDOWS CAB files (ie. C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS) (ie. D:\WIN98 where D is the drive letter assigned to your CD-ROM)
4) Click OK and continue with the restore function

-- End Windows 98 Instructions --

-- Windows ME Instructions --

1) Click START - RUN, type MSCONFIG and hit ENTER
2) Click the Extract Files button
3) In the "Specify the system file you would like to restore" field, type
C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\SULFNBK.EXE and hit ENTER
4) In the RESTORE FROM field, type in the path to your WINDOWS CAB files
(ie. C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\INSTALL)
5) Click OK and continue with the restore function

Old Friend to ACA
Stupid of me. Yes, I have Windows 98. Thanks so much for putting me straight. I don't have long file names, but I will restore nevertheless.

Aged Cyber Aunt Index Page

Updated 15 January 2004