Fw: Be careful and aware of this Virus [off topic]

["Maryanne Stroud Gabbani" <gabbani@starnet.com.eg>]

This came through Equine-L and looks to be a real warning.  Having seen the
fun everyone had with Happy 99, I thought I'd pass it on for what it's
worth. Further info can be found at
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/mailissa.html

>E-mail Word attachment called list.doc contains
>virus/worm that sends copies of itself around Net
>
>By Bob Sullivan
>MSNBC
>
>March 26 — If you receive an e-mail with the subject line “Important
>message from ... ,” be suspicious. If that message comes with a Word
>document attached called “list.doc,” you’ve likely been sent the
>Word/Melissa macro virus. And if you open the document, it will send 50
>copies of itself to several e-mail addresses it gleans from your personal
>e-mail. That gives it the ability to propagate very quickly — much quicker
>than the happy99.exe worm, according to virus experts.
>
> “It pretty much brings mail systems to a halt ... We’ve never seen
>anything spread like this.”
>— SRIVHES SAMPATH McAfee
>
>  IF YOU’VE BEEN infected, don’t feel bad — experts think hundreds of
>thousands of PCs might have been infected in the one day the virus has been
>“in the wild.”
>       A spokesman from Network Associates said the company received one
>e-mail every three minutes starting at 8 a.m. from clients complaining
>about the file.
>       “It’s spreading much faster than happy99,” he said.
>       About 60,000 users were infected at the company which made the first
>complaint, said Srivhes Sampath, general manager of McAfee Online. “It
>pretty much brings mail systems to a halt ... We’ve never seen anything
>spread like this.”
>       The Melissa macro is spreading so fast for two reasons; it sends 50
>copies of itself out after it infects a user; and, it is often able to fool
>potential victims into thinking the mail came from a trusted source.
>       After infecting a user, the macro reads the victim’s registry and
>gleans the user’s name. It then sends 50 copies of itself to e-mail
>addresses included in that user’s address book. The subject line of those
>mails includes the infected user’s name (it reads “Important message from
>[user name]”), which often tricks potential victims into trusting the
>message and opening the attached document, according to Network Associates.
>
>       The user does not know he or she is infected until an e-mail
>recipient complains.
>       “Word/Melissa written by Kwyjibo,” is the text that accompanies the
>macro. The author also pokes fun at virus writers who he or she expects
>will argue about the exact classification of the pest, as often happens.
>“Works in both Word 2000 and Word 97. Worm? Macro Virus? Word 97 Virus?
>Word 2000 Virus? You Decide!”
>       Kwyjibo appears to be a reference to a “Simpsons” TV show episode in
>which Bart Simpson wins a Scrabble game by spelling out the word Kwyjibo.
>The virus also includes a line from that episode: “Twenty-two points, plus
>triple-word-score, plus fifty points for using all my letters. Game’s over.
>I’m outta here.”
>
>        The document itself contains a list of 73 pornographic Web sites,
>along with usernames and passwords for those sites. The virus may have been
>unleashed on the world today — it contains the text “Password List for
>March 26, 1999.”
>
> Command Central virus center information on Happy99.exe
> Data Fellows Happy99.exe information page
> Network Solutions Happy99.exe information
> McAfee page on the Melissa macro




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