Alleged Author of 'Tennis' Virus Says He Meant No Harm

[InfoSec News <isn () C4I ORG>]

http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,22185,00.html

By Elinor Abreu
February 13, 2001

A man using the alias 'OnTheFly' states on his homepage that he was
merely trying to teach people an e-mail lesson.

The person believed to be responsible for the "Tennis" virus that on
Monday spread through thousands of computers said he meant no harm and
that he created it to teach computer users a lesson about safe online
practices.

Using the alias "OnTheFly," a Dutch Excite@Home subscriber admitted to
creating the virus using a Visual Basic Worm Generator written by a
programmer in Argentina. "I didn't do it for fun," he wrote in a
letter posted on his Tripod homepage on Tuesday.

He said he decided to create the virus after reading an article last
week based on research from International Data Corp. that found that
Web surfers are still opening unknown e-mail attachments despite being
hit with the "Love Letter" virus in May. That virus is believed to
have caused billions of dollars in damage.

"I think IDC is right," OnTheFly stated on his site. "I never wanted
to harm the people who opened the attachment. But after all: It's
their own fault they got infected."

The strain of e-mail virus created by OnTheFly clogged inboxes with
messages purporting to include a photo of 19-year-old Russian tennis
star Anna Kournikova. Once opened, the attachment sent itself to all
addresses found in the user's Microsoft (MSFT) Outlook address book.
Antivirus vendors quickly released fixes for it.

OnTheFly said he chose Kournikova because "I am a big fan of her. She
deserves some attention, doesn't she?"

The Tennis virus also was designed to automatically open the Web page
of a Dutch computer shop on Jan. 26, 2002. OnTheFly said he chose that
shop because he recently purchased something from the store and had
the receipt laying on his desk in front of him when he created the
worm, a type of virus that replicates itself from computer to
computer.

Richard M. Smith, CTO of consumer advocacy group the Privacy
Foundation, tracked OnTheFly through newsgroups and then to OnTheFly's
Excite@Home account. "He was not careful about [hiding] his Internet
Protocol address," said Smith, who helped hunt down the creator of
1999's Melissa virus. "He seems like a kid. I'd be surprised if he's
over 16."

An Excite@Home spokeswoman in the U.S. said the company was looking
into the matter. "We will be taking the appropriate action against the
subscriber," said Alison Bowman. "The investigation could take some
time."

It is unclear what action could be taken against OnTheFly if he does
indeed turn out to be the creator of the worm. Charges against a
Filipino computer-school dropout accused of creating the Love Letter
virus ultimately were dropped because the country had no laws covering
computer-related crimes at the time. Since then, such laws have been
proposed and that suspect has been charged with credit-card fraud.

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