New 'Love Bug' Computer Virus Sweeps World.htm

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New 'Love Bug' Computer Virus Sweeps World

By Mark Bendeich

LONDON (Reuters) - A computer virus dubbed the ``Love Bug'' caused havoc with computer systems worldwide on Thursday, shutting down email servers at major companies and penetrating the Pentagon and Britain's parliament.

Companies across Europe, North America, Asia and Australia are said to have been hit by the virus, raising fears of a repeat of the Melissa virus which caused chaos in the United States last year.

The world's biggest wireless telecom firm, Vodafone AirTouch Plc, shut down its email system because of the ``Love Bug'' and London's House of Commons also succumbed and closed its email system for about two hours while it eradicated it.

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The new virus originates in an email entitled ``I love you'' and reading: ``kindly check the attached LOVELETTER coming from me.'' Once the attachment is launched, the virus sends copies of the same email to everybody in the user's address book.

It targets Microsoft Corp's Outlook software and works on the same principle as the Melissa virus, which infected about a million computers, clogging whole networks in the United States and causing $80 million in damage in early 1999.

The virus also overwrites picture and music files from local and network drives.

'Spyder'

U.S. media conglomerate Time Warner Inc. said its computers had been affected. ``It's all over our system,'' said a staff member in its public relations department. Entertainment and drinks group Seagram Co also took its email system down.

The Computer Emergency Response Team, a Defense Department-funded computer security project, said it had received 50 reports of the virus. ``It appears to be similar to the Melissa virus,'' spokesman Bill Pollak said.

A Pentagon office that compiles news clippings sent the ''Iloveyou'' message to its mailing list on Thursday, including U.S. security agencies like the Central Intelligence Agency, Civil Air Patrol, General Accounting Office, military commands and the FBI-led National Infrastructure Protection Centre.

Major international anti-virus firms said their offices in Europe had been bombarded by calls on Thursday from businesses complaining they had been hit by a blizzard of messages.

Anti-virus firm Symantec said it had already released an update to its software to combat the virus, but warned computer users not to open any ``I love you'' messages.

British Internet service provider Freeserve said it had set up a filter to screen out any amorous emails with the words ``I love you.''

``We have been getting calls since nine a.m. Thursday from all over Europe. It's especially affecting Germany, Spain, Italy, France, Britain and Norway,'' Raimund Genes, chief executive of Trend Micro in Germany, told Reuters.

``You can be sure that it's affected all large firms.''

'Killer From Manila'

All over the West, employees were being warned not to open ''I Love You'' emails.

Britain's Consumers' Association said the virus, also called the ``Killer from Manila,'' had originated in the Philippines.

It had been sent by someone who operated under the apparent pseudonym ``Spyder,'' citing a print-out of the virus program, said the association's head of digital services, Alan Stevens.

Anti-virus experts said ``Spyder'' had been especially cunning in his baiting his emails with ``I Love You'' and making them appear to have come from someone known to the recipient.

``It's irresistible,'' Stevens said.

Dutch IT consultancy Ordina Beheer NV was also hit by the virus on Thursday.

Ordina confirmed it had received emails containing the virus, but said it had shut down its network servers to avoid passing it on to customers or other correspondents.

(Additional reporting by Jana Sanchez in Amsterdam, and the Frankfurt and New York bureaux)

• Europe Hit by New 'Love Bug' Computer Virus (May 4)