Hello, All
We had a scary bout with the I Love You virus on our laptop computer over the
weekend. The good thing was we trapped it coming in, quite by accident. By
happenstance our AOL is set to show pictures as they come in. I was browsing
and clicked on a graphic hyperlink and suddenly the entire I Love You virus
file was printed on my screen--otherwise I never would have know we'd gotten
it. It was attached to a jpg file which immediately changed to a jpe file
while I watched.
I printed all four pages of the program and then sat there and tried to
figure out what to do next. Eventually, it all worked out, but took HOURS. It
did infect the computer, but was pretty well contained in just nine files
because I never touched it or rebooted the computer...it crept in mostly
through Front Page and Outlook so we've taken both of those programs off the
computers that communicate with the outside world. They are notorious for
leaking, and eight of the files got in through the Front Page Backdoor. (Why
on earth do they ship software with that programmers' tool still there?) It
was amazing to see how interlocked all of Mr. Gates' programs are. McAfee was
great for fixing it right on line.
The main virus hit Windows' Temporary Internet Files folder and attached
itself to the Content subdirectory. I don't think I'd better print actual
file names here as a spider delivered it and might take offense and hit
somebody else. What amazed me is I purged all the caches including that one
as soon as I saw the printout, but it persisted. The first pass of the virus
checker wouldn't touch the main file (I believe because it was still open),
but after I got up enough nerve to close it (no delete where I was in AOL)
the checker wiped it out. I guess the smart thing would have been to close it
fast, race to the Temporary Internet Files folder and delete it before it
could proliferate, but I didn't know that then.
ILU steals your passwords so we had to change all of them. Obviously we had
to update all the virus protection files, too. The latest McAfee update is
5/7 and Norton is 5/5, so if you're earlier than that you might want to do it
too. We also set the caches for everything below 5000mb for a while (the
virus files were all a bit over 10000), and disabled all instant messaging
programs
The machine I write from has just been tested and passed, so it shouldn't be
carrying anything to be afraid of. BTW, if any of you techies want a
printout of the virus, send me a fax number (NO PC faxes please!).
Alice McElhone
Benchmark Publications Inc.