Cinquantamila.it La storia raccontata da Giorgio Dell'Arti

Vicious virus on the loose A vicious computer virus inspired by the Love Bug has started spreading across networks, but experts believe it will not become as widespread as its predecessor. The virus, christened NewLove-A, is not a variant of the Love Bug but uses some of the tricks that virus employed. However, NewLove-A has the potential to do far more damage than the Love Bug. Computers at several large companies were infected late on Thursday, according to Dave Perry, spokesman at anti-virus software company Trend Micro Inc. in California. However, Paul Ducklin, a spokesman for anti-virus company Sophos said so far it has had no reports of UK organisations being hit by the virus. Microsoft Outlook Like the Love Bug, the virus spreads by mailing itself to everyone in the Microsoft Outlook address book on the computer it has infected. It arrives in an attachment to e-mail just like the Love Bug that spread to millions of computers two weeks ago. However, it is not given away by an "ILOVEYOU" subject line. Instead, the subject line changes to the name of a file recently used on the computer it was sent from. If no files were recently used, it uses a random word or phrase as its subject, preceded by the usual "FW" abbreviation for forwarded correspondence. The e-mail will have an attachment with the same name, but ending in "vbs". Mr Ducklin said every time the virus mails itself it mutates to avoid detection. "After three generations of e-mail each attachment is around 800 kilobytes in size." Increased awareness Because the attachments are so big and take Outlook so long to generate, Sophos does not think that the virus will spread as far and as fast as the Love Bug. However, machines infected by the virus could suffer more damage because once it has mailed itself the virus attempts to destroy most of the files on the hard drive. Only people running Microsoft’s Outlook e-mail program for Windows are vulnerable. "If you don’t blindly trust attachments then you are not going to run the thing in the first place," said Mr Ducklin. Dave 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."