More L-O-V-E!
-----Original Message-----
From: Rich Levin [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, May 04, 2000 10:37 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: PCA: WARNING: MAJOR E-MAIL VIRUS SPREADING
-= via RBL's PC ALERT http://www.RBLevin.net
[X] News [ ] PR [ ] Op/Ed
Source: http://www.msnbc.com/news/403350.asp?0a=21042205
`Love' virus infects e-mail systems
Highly communicable
computer virus spreads around the globe, deleting images and music
files
The 'love' virus is sent through e-mail messages that pretend to be
electronic love letters.
By Bob Sullivan
MSNBC NEWS SERVICES
May 4 - A new computer virus called "ILOVEYOU" ravaged
its way around
the world Thursday, shutting down e-mail servers and deleting files.
Researchers say the virus is spreading faster than the infamous
Melissa virus, which brought companies to a standstill last year.
But `love' has much more devastating ramifications already.
For
example, one European magazine has lost its entire photograph
archive, and London's House of Commons closed down temporarily
over
concerns about the virus.
London's House of Commons was the latest UK organization to
succumb
to the virus, which has been likened to the Melissa virus.
"THIS IS THE worst I've ever seen in my nine years in the
business,"
said Mikko Hypponen, manager of anti-virus research at F-Secure
Corp. "We actually don't know why it's so widespread, why
it's
spreading so fast."
First reports of the virus came late Thursday afternoon Hong Kong
time and early morning European time.
In Asia, Dow Jones Newswires and the Asian Wall Street Journal were
among the victims.
"It crashed all the computers," said Daphne Ghesquiere, a Dow
Jones
spokeswoman in Hong Kong. "You get the message and the topic says
ILOVEYOU, and I was among the stupid ones to open it. I got about
five at one time and I was suspicious, but one was from Dow Jones
Newswires, so I opened it."
ILOVEYOU arrives as an e-mail attachment in a message automatically
sent apparently by a colleague.
A message sent to MSNBC by a venture capitalist included the
text "kindly check the attached love letter coming from me."
If a victim is tricked into opening the attached program, which is
written in Microsoft's Visual Basic script, the virus deletes
every
jpg image file and mp3 music file it can find.
A major European magazine, which Hypponen would not name, lost its
entire image database for the past two years to the virus. The
magazine's publishing date was supposed to be May 5.
"Right now they are scrambling to figure out what to do,"
said
Hypponen.
After deleting image and music files, the virus e-mails itself to
every person or destination in the victim's various address
books,
including any corporate distribution lists. That's why it spreads
so
fast.
"Very quickly you have 100,000 e-mails in your system and it
shuts
down," said Hypponen.
In the virus' source code, an individual named "spyder"
takes credit
for authoring the program. Hypponen said the name is unknown in the
virus scene.
In a bit of programming understatement, the code contains a comment,
likely by the author, suggesting the virus is "simple but i think
this is good..."
The code also references Manila, Philippines, but that doesn't
necessarily indicate the author lives there. There are no other hints
as to who "spyder" might be other than this cryptic message
within
the code:
"barok -loveletter(vbe) ."
OTHER VICTIMS
Many European computer systems closed down e-mail servers Thursday.
London's House of Commons was the latest UK organization to
succumb
to the virus. The lower House of Commons shut down its e-mail system
for about two hours on Thursday to safeguard against the virus.
Britain's Consumers Association and a major anti-virus firm said
they
had also been bombarded by calls from businesses whose e-mail servers
had been hit by a blizzard of messages.
British Internet service provider Freeserve said it had set up a
filter to screen out any amorous e-mails with the words "I love
you."
Got a tip about this story? Please write to [log in to unmask]
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Compliments of Rich Levin's PC ALERT service (http://www.RBLevin.net)
"Only news that matters"
Click here to SUBSCRIBE
mailto:[log in to unmask]
Click here to UNSUBSCRIBE
mailto:[log in to unmask]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroups eLerts
It's Easy. It's Fun. Best of All, it's Free!
http://click.egroups.com/1/3863/0/_/129155/_/957451012/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Original content copyright (C) 2000 [log in to unmask] All other
copyrights retained by their respective owners as noted above.
|
