| Macs were completely unaffected when the powerful iloveyou virus, known as the Love Bug, swept across the world from the Far East early on the morning of May 4, 2000. Delivered in the form of an e-mail attachment, the Love Bug struck those people who opened the attachment, which caused a Microsoft Virtual Basic script to run, making a number of damaging changes to the computer's operating system. Only Windows 95, Windows 98, and NT systems were susceptible. The Mac OS does not provide the hooks needed for that script to execute, so the virus simply did nothing if the attachment was opened on a Macintosh.
If it was opened on a Windows computer, though, the first thing it did was try to take the user to a website where their password file was taken from their computer. That aspect was halted early in the spread of the virus when the Internet Service Providers hosting that website discovered it and shut it down. Next, the e-mail worm started traveling around a user's mail lists, internally, sending the 'lloveyou' message to everyone on the list.
Once done with that, the virus would attempt to overwrite Web files, JavaScript, MP3 files and picture files, destroying the files and putting in their place copies of the virus with the old file names. Finally, the virus would plant copies of itself in the Windows operating system, leading one to believe that one had killed it, only to have it return when the computer was restarted.
The effects worldwide have been well documented. Here in South Florida, major corporations were affected to varying degrees. Some companies were forced to sever their connections to e-mail and the Internet because they were so overwhelmed with copies of the virus-infected e-mail, they could not cope. Others simply could not eradicate the virus immediately, so they shut down e-mail as a precaution.
Macintosh based systems escaped unharmed, but some Mac users did face the annoyance of being swamped with the virus e-mail. While the virus could not harm Mac-based computers, the constant barrage of e-mail was annoying.
Before Mac users start feeling too good about dodging this bullet, we must remember that the reason Windows based systems are most often the target of virus writers is because there are so many Windows computers. A dedicated programmer could easily write a Mac virus which would be just as destructive. But with fewer Macs, it would be much slower to spread, and much easier to kill.
That said, there are things you can do, no matter what computer system you use, to minimize the effects of any e-mail virus.
- Running a virus checker will help against established viruses, but new viruses can easily slip through.
- The easiest way to be safe is to simply ignore attachments from people you don't know, or unexpected attachments from people you do know. In the case of iloveyou, the notes came from people who had placed you in their address book, so it might have appeared you knew them.
- If you are sending an e-mail with attachments, explain what they are, what type of file(s) they are, and give the user a phone number or return e-mail to confirm.
- Get out of the habit of sending joke attachments or cute cartoons. People tend to open these without thought, and virus writers know this. If in doubt, delete!
If you don't open the attachment, at least so far, you can't get infected. Use a little common sense, whether you use a Mac or a PC, and you should be as safe from infection as you can be. And if you use a Mac, celebrate one more piece of proof that "Thinking Different" pays off!
May 2000
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