Berst Alert MONDAY, MARCH 29, 1999 Invasion of the Email Snatchers! Jesse Berst, Editorial Director ZDNet AnchorDesk I haven't seen anything take over this fast since Invasion of the Body Snatchers. A malicious virus is poised to overwhelm the Internet today. Beginning on Friday, "Melissa" first defeated major corporations such as Microsoft and Intel. Over the weekend, it spread to other companies and universities. Left unchecked, it could infect millions of computers in a matter of days. Here's my advice: Understand the problem Disinfect your computer and your company Take steps to protect yourself in the future Let's get started with step one. Then I'll send you to expert advice for steps two and three. WHO'S AT RISK You can be infected if you use: Microsoft Word 97 or Word 2000 for word processing and Microsoft Outlook for email (Outlook Express, however, is not affected) Millions of people use this combination. If you're one of them, then you could be in trouble. In fact, you may be in trouble already without realizing it. HOW MELISSA WORKS Melissa is a so-called "macro" virus. It resides inside a Word document attached to an email. If you open the document, it will try to run the malicious macro. If you permit that macro to run... You're screwed. Melissa then sends a copy of the document to the first 50 people in your address book. And now they're in danger too. Melissa propagates so fast, it can quickly overwhelm mail servers. Even worse, it can send out secret company information to outsiders. HOW MELISSA DAMAGES YOU AND YOUR COMPANY Melissa doesn't delete files or trash disks. Rather, it overwhelms mail servers as it propagates itself. The first time it sends out 50 infected messages. Those 50 can potentially spawn another 50 each, for a total of 2,500. Those 2,500 can theoretically launch 50 more... and so on. Even worse, the virus could expose embarrassing or sensitive information. It initially attaches to a document called LIST.DOC (a roster of pornographic sites). But it may infect future Word documents. So if you call up your top-secret product plans... or your private list of special discounts to favorite customers... or the roll-call of employees you plan to fire next week... those other documents may also get posted to the first 50 people in your address book. Of course, if you're Microsoft, your secret plans have already been aired to the public, courtesy of the U.S. Department of Justice. Everybody else, however, has a lot at stake. Have you experienced Melissa at your company? Hit the TalkBack button to warn others via a message beneath this story. You can also join my Berst Alerts forum to trade questions and answers with other readers. >From : http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/story/story_3233.html
