Melissa virus goes global

Published: 31 March 1999 y., Wednesday
MeThe Melissa computer virus, discovered only last Friday,has spread itself by e-mail around the world and is causing havoc for large corporations, according to security experts.It is just a macro virus but it has this additional feature of being able to get around quick.Melissa conceived in sex group Dr Solomon_s VirusPatrol, which checks newsgroups on the Net for developing viruses, discovered Melissa in a sex newsgroup on March 26.The New York Times reported that several major US corporations shut down their mail servers on Friday night as they became overloaded with messages created by the virus.Comments inside the macro virus identify it as "Melissa...by Kwyjibo." Computers become infected when users receive a particular e-mail and open a Word document attached to it.The e-mail is headed: "Important Message From" and contains the sentence: "Here is that document you asked for...don_t show anyone else ;-)." the attachment is usually called list.doc.If the user launches the document, their computer becomes infected, although the worst thing that can happen apparently is if it is launched when the day equals the minute value...such as 29 minutes past on the 29th, the following message appears:
" Twenty-two points, plus triple-word-score, plus fifty points for using all my letters. Game_s over. I_m outta here." When the document attachment is launched, a program is created which replicates the e-mail and sends it to the first 50 addresses in the Global Address Book of users running Microsoft_s Outlook personal organiser. Microsoft, Network Associates and other anti-virus and computer security companies have issued warnings and are supplying fixes for Melissa.
Šaltinis: Internet
Copying, publishing, announcing any information from the News.lt portal without written permission of News.lt editorial office is prohibited.

Facebook Comments

New comment


Captcha

Associated articles

search.lt news

search.lt presents newest links more »

E-Government Initiatives in the European Union and in Lithuania

During the last decade of the 20th century, many of the world’s governments began to implement initiatives related to the way in which the Internet can be used to improve various aspects of public sector. Public administration has today become a part of the service market. more »

Eastern Europe lags behind in internet usage

Over three quarters of Bulgarians have never used the internet, and 23% do not know what the word means, a survey published in a local newspaper said on Thursday more »

First responder XML

With almost every local jurisdiction and agency nationwide running different systems, officials hope a new data standard will help information-sharing programs overcome the differences between hardware and applications more »

'Spam King' Ordered to Disable Spyware

A federal judge has ordered a man known as the "Spam King" to disable so-called spyware programs that infiltrate people's computers, track their Internet use and flood them with pop-up advertising. more »

Microsoft Shows Small Business Software

Microsoft is building on its 2002 buy of Danish business application developer Navision A/S with the release this week of its first major product built on the Navision software suite more »

search.lt news

search.lt presents newest links more »

PayPal Scrambling To Fix Site Glitch

A recent monthly update to its Web site caused no end of trouble for online transaction company PayPal more »

search.lt news

search.lt presents newest links more »

MSN TV 2 Internet & Media Player Debuts

Microsoft used the TechXNY conference spotlight to lift the curtains on the new MSN TV 2 Internet & Media Player more »