Melissa virus goes global

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.