mail servers have been taken down by Melissa, a new computer virus that hit the world on Friday, March 26. This insidious virus enters computers through e-mail attachments that appear to have been mailed by an acquaintance.
E-mails with infected attachments have "Important Message from…" in the subject line and the sender is given as the name of someone the recipient would recognize. The virus embeds itself into both Word 97 and Word 20000 documents. The body of the message says, "Here is the document you asked for… don't show it to anyone else" and sports a winking smiley face ;-). Don't open the attachment. That's where the trouble begins.
Once the attached document is opened, the virus immediately searches out the first fifty names in the computer's address book and sends out infected documents to those listed. "The reason this is spreading so rapidly is that you're getting it from people you know and trust," said Eric Lundquist, editor in chief of PC Week magazine. Just imagine a corporate setting where the first entries in the address book are address groups. Where instead of an individual address you have, for example, European Sales Contacts. The effect of the virus in this situation is overwhelming and is taking down servers in major corporations.
In addition to jamming computers and generating replications of the infected e-mail, the virus is turning off Office's macro protection which leaves the computer vulnerable to future viruses. When the virus attacks Word 2000 documents it "lower(s) the security setting to the lowest level by modifying the registry and will disable the Word menu commands which allows the user to reinstate security settings" warns TrendMicro. After ridding computers of Melissa, users should ensure that macro protection gets reactivated.
For computer users interested in having their systems checked for computer viruses, TrendMicro is offering a free virus scan at www.housecall.antivirus.com/explorer.html. And Dan Schrader, director of product marketing at TrendMicro, advises that the best way for companies to eliminate Melissa is to run virus protection software on their servers instead of at the desktop level.
Computers can't get a virus by simply opening an e-mail, the virus strikes when attached documents are opened. "Always be careful of anything that arrives by e-mail," cautions Peter Deegan of Woody's Office Watch.
