New virus to watch out for 5/19/00
Variant of Love Bug Virus Surfaces
The Associated Press
May 19 2000 9:10AM ET
NEW YORK (AP) - A new computer virus, said to be both smarter and more
destructive than the worldwide “Love Bug” plague that inspired it, has
surfaced but was not spreading rapidly today, according to Internet bug
watchers.
The CERT Coordination Center, a government-chartered computer emergency
team at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, reported that as of 8
a.m. EDT, it had “received no direct reports of infections related to
this virus.”
The virus was detected at several large companies late Thursday, said Dave
Perry, spokesman for anti-virus software maker Trend Micro Inc., based in
Cupertino, Calif. At one company, 5,000 computers were infected, he said.
He would not identify any of the companies affected.
While the “Love Bug” was given away by the “ILOVEYOU’ subject line of
the e-mails that carried it, the new virus changes subject lines every
time it is sent. Also, it destroys most of the files on the computers it
infects, causing potentially catastrophic losses of data.
“Each time the virus spreads, it mutates itself to evade detection,”
Symantec Corp., another Cupertino-based anti-virus software maker, said in
a statement.
The subject line of an infected e-mail starts with “FW: ” and includes
the name of a randomly chosen attachment from a previous e-mail on an
infected computer. The e-mail will have an attachment with the same name,
but ending in ”.vbs.”
Clicking on the attachment will activate the virus. Like “Love Bug,” it
will send it self to everybody in the user’s address book. It will then
overwrite most files on the hard drive, rendering the computer useless
until the operating system is reinstalled.
As with the “Love Bug,” only recipients running Microsoft’s Outlook
e-mail program for Windows are vulnerable and there’s no danger if the
attachment is not opened.
The “Love Bug” spread like an avalanche to millions of computers two
weeks ago. Estimates of the damages caused range up to $10 billion.
Trend Micro’s Perry said he hoped that increased awareness among e-mail
users would hold back the spread of the new virus.
“Any time a virus hits a week after another virus, its potency is
diminished,” he said. “People tend to be a little more cautious.”
The larger size of this virus’s attachments are more likely to crash
e-mail servers, experts said. The “Love Bug” had a small attachment, but
crashed e-mail servers all over the world when it sent millions of copies
of itself through the systems at once.
The search for the author of the “Love Bug” has led investigators to the
Philippines, where several people have been questioned.
The relatively simple virus was followed some hours later by slightly
modified variants, posing as jokes or confirmations on Mother’s Day gifts.
None of the variants were very widespread.
Microsoft has said it will next week make available a modification to
Outlook that will warn users about suspect e-mail attachments.
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