FYI ...Bob Melissa’ Mess Continues By Chris Allbritton -- The Associated Press S U M M A R Y As the *Melissa* virus spreads, other viruses await; Meanwhile, the FBI gets a lead. MORE ON THIS STORY Web Experts Warn of Virus N E W Y O R K, March 30 — The *Melissa* computer virus has proved to be a very unwelcome guest, turning the digital superhighway against its own users by swamping thousands of computers with bogus e-mail. The virus began to show up Friday and spread rapidly on Monday, slipping into systems via e-mail and forcing computers to fire off dozens of infected messages to friends and colleagues. Once opened, the virus immediately reads the user’s e-mail address book and sends an infected message to the first 50 entries. People whose last name begin with *A* or *B* have been particularly beleaguered by Melissa because most e-mail address books are arranged in alphabetical order. Infects All Word Documents, Too Although the virus apparently causes no permanent damage to a computer, its clogging affects were far-reaching. All new Microsoft Word documents created on an infected computer will contain the virus, too. Companies reporting problems included the chemical company DuPont in Wilmington, Del.; electronics maker Honeywell in Minneapolis; Lockheed Martin, the aerospace company in Bethesda, Md.; The Associated Press Broadcast Services in Washington, D.C.; and Compaq Computer in Houston. Michael Vatis, a federal prosecutor and director of the National Infrastructure Protection Center in Washington, said military and government computers were sabotaged, along with thousands of other institutions’ systems. The FBI is investigating. A software developer, Richard Smith of Phar Lap Software, has given the bureau evidence that the virus may be the work of someone who wrote and distributed a similar program two years ago, The New York Times reported today. Cyber ‘Fingerprints’ Give a Lead Smith said there are computer *fingerprints* from someone who uses the moniker VicodinES all over the Melissa virus. *It’s pretty clear that VicodinES is somehow related to all this,* Smith told the newspaper. To make matters worse, a similar virus called Papa was discovered Monday. Papa sends out even more infected e-mails than Melissa, though it has a bug that sometimes prevents it from working, said Srivats Sampath, of McAfee software, a company that makes antivirus software. The Melissa virus comes in the form of an e-mail, usually containing the subject line *Important Message.* It appears to be from a friend or colleague. The body of the e-mail message says, *Here is that document you asked for ... don’t show it to anyone else* with a winking smiley face formed by the punctuation marks ;-). Don’t Open the Porn List Attached to the message is a Microsoft’s Word document file that lists Internet pornography sites. Once the user opens that file, the virus digs into the user’s Microsoft’s Outlook address book and sends infected documents to the first 50 addresses. *The reason this is spreading so rapidly is that you’re getting it from people you know and you trust,* said Eric Lundquist, editor in chief of PC Week magazine. *You should never open documents or attachments from people you don’t know, but this is the first one you need to be careful of opening documents from people you do know,* Lundquist said. The OCLC Online Library Computer Center in Dublin, Ohio, a heavy user of the Microsoft programs, managed to detect the virus early and avoided trouble. Some Get Warnings Out Spokesman Bob Murphy said the nonprofit computer network, which links 33,000 libraries around the world, warned its 800-member staff not to open the attachment when it was spotted by a technician. *We were fortunate, his name started with a ‘B,*‘ Murphy said. Melissa slowed Portland, Ore., city government to a crawl, forcing workers to resort to as handwritten memos and the telephone. *I can tell you that we’ve become addicted to the e-mail system,* Katz said. *The phone and shouting have been the methods of communication. It has slowed down business.* The virus forced computer managers to shut down an e-mail server that supplied schedules for meetings and circulates documents. The city has about 3,500 computers, and nearly all of them were infected. Not even the governor of North Dakota, Ed Schafer, was immune. Schafer, a frequent user of e-mail, got several of the infected messages Monday and opened one. It then promptly fired out the message to dozens of others, including first lady Nancy Jones Schafer. *Unfortunately, I didn’t even look at it,* Schafer said. *When it jammed my computer, I was more kind of pounding on my keyboard, worrying about why my computer was jammed.* Robert Karr, Science Research Assistant Michigan State Legislature Legislative Service Bureau Science & Technology Division 517-373-3028 124 W. Allegan, 4th Floor FAX: 517-373-0171 POB 30036 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Lansing, Michigan 48909-7536 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from this list, send e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put "unsubscribe MAPINFO-L" in the message body, or contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
