Social aspects of the Love Bug virus

[William Knowles <wk () C4I ORG>]

http://www.sunworld.com/sunworldonline/swol-06-2000/swol-06-lovebug.html

Social aspects of the Love Bug virus
Email clients and operating systems must better protect the end user

By Brian Martin

Sometime on May 4, 2000, several antivirus companies, security
professionals, and unwitting email users discovered what has now been
labeled the Love Bug virus. Within hours, it had spread to just about
every continent and had wormed its way into tens of thousands of
companies. Hours later every antivirus company in existence scrambled
to claim credit for discovering the virus and for being the first to
provide a cure. Most Internet users believe those companies were on
top of events and deserved credit. But from security veterans of past
virus incidents, a deep collective sigh could be heard.

The Love Bug's ability to automatically mail itself to everyone in an
infected user's Microsoft Outlook address book made it particularly
nasty. Those who save every email message they receive, or who have
business contacts at a wide number of companies, provided the virus
with a perfect opportunity to spread like wildfire. The effectiveness
of this replication method lies in who knows whom. Doug Thompson, who
writes a column called "The Rant" for Capital Hill Blue, came out with
a great piece that threw blame at a familiar face and also outlined
the fundamental problem.

[...]


*-------------------------------------------------*
"Communications without intelligence is noise;
Intelligence without communications is irrelevant."
Gen. Alfred. M. Gray, USMC
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