|
NISER > News > Melissa Strikes Malaysia
Melissa Strikes Malaysia By Sim Leoi Leoi 5th April 1999 (The Star) PETALING JAYA: The dreaded Melissa virus has begun its trail of destruction here, with casualties like overloaded and malfunctioning mailservers. "Between one to two mailservers have been crashing daily since early in the week due to the Melissa virus," said Justin Tan, technical director at Extol Corp, a leading local information security specialist and developer of the popular Armour anti-virus software. Tan said the company received approximately 25 enquiries per day, mostly on how to detect Melissa. Asked if the company's security experts, dubbed the Tiger Team, were required to swing into action, Tan said, "We've done most of our troubleshooting through the phone. "Plus, Armour detects and cleans the virus so our customers should not lose any sleep," he told In.Tech last week. He added that about 20% of the calls came from non -Armour users and most enquiries were from corporate bodies. "The initial scenario was quite bad ... people were virtually panicking over the phone because it was 'spreading' quite fast. But when we told them what it was all about and how to handle it, they were quite relieved," Tan said, adding that Extol received calls from all over the country. Meanwhile, a spokesperson with the Malaysian Computer Emergency Response Team or MyCERT, said that as of last week, it had yet to receive any calls regarding the Melissa virus. Operated by Mimos Bhd, MyCERT is a non-profit organisation which deals in computer and network security matters. Melissa 101 Melissa began its ravages on March 27, zeroing in on computer networks using the Microsoft Word 97 and Word 2000 wordprocessor applications, and the Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express e-mail software. As a result, corporate giants such as Microsoft, Intel, Lucent and Dell Computer were among the hundreds of businesses swamped with millions of unwanted e-mail messages. A week after Melissa began swamping computers around the world, authorities said they had arrested a man who created the bug in his apartment and named it after a topless dancer. David L. Smith, 30, was arrested Thursday night at his brother's house in Eatontown in New Jersey, the state attorney general's office said Friday. The charges against Smith include interruption of public communications, conspiracy and theft of computer service. He faces a maximum of 40 years in prison and a US$480,000 (RM1.8mil) fine. Smith was released on US$100,000 bail (RM380,000). Smith has worked as a network programmer for a company that did subcontracting for telephone giant AT&T Corp, state Attorney General Peter Verniero said. According to an Associated Press report, Smith allegedly created the malicious virus in his apartment and spread the bug using a stolen America Online account, said Christopher Bubb, head of a state computer analysis unit. AOL contacted state authorities after an in-house investigation turned up evidence that pointed to New Jersey, Bubb said. Using the information provided by AOL, investigators in the state's computer unit, with the aid of federal experts, were able to trace the virus to Smith's phone number. The investigation took about three days. THE US-based Computer Emergency Response Team or CERT (http://www.cert.org/) reacted quickly to reports of Melissa wreaking havoc on computer systems, and issued an advisory on March 27 (http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-99-04-Melissa-Macro-Virus.html). CERT has also posted a Melissa FAQ at http://www.cert.org/techtips/MelissaFAQ.html. CERT advises all users to disable macros in Word, and perhaps even in any product that contains a macro language. In Word97, you can disable automatic macro execution by clicking Tools/ Options/ General, then turn on the 'Macro virus protection' checkbox. In Word2000, macro execution is controlled by a security level variable similar to Internet Explorer. Click on Tools/ Macro/ Security and choose High, Medium, or Low. Meanwhile, other advisories are available at:
|