for those who need more information on this Love Bug Virus, it is on Aol news..... jenell 'Love Bug' Computer Virus Sweeps World By Derek Caney Reuters NEW YORK (May 4) - A computer virus dubbed the ''Love Bug'' wreaked havoc on computer systems worldwide Thursday, shutting down e-mail systems at major companies and penetrating the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency and Britain's parliament. The ''Love Bug'' is being called the fastest-spreading computer virus, affecting hundreds of thousands of computers around the world at brokerages, food companies, media, auto giants and technology firms, universities and even medical institutions. The virus drew comparisons with last year's Melissa virus, which spread through computer systems in the United States. Last month, 15-year-old hacker ''Mafiaboy'' was arrested for his alleged role in sabotaging the CNN.com Web site in February. At that time, some of the best known Web sites, such as Amazon.com and Yahoo! Inc., were sabotaged and their services crippled for a short period of time. Mikko Hypponen, manager of anti-virus research at computer security firm F-Secure Corp.'s testing facilities in Helsinki, Finland, said the virus had affected hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide and could become the most widespread virus attack ever. ''We know from direct reports from customers that there are over 150,000 computers affected,'' Hypponen said. ''I would say several hundreds of thousands of computers are affected by this. It's still too early to say just how many.'' Melissa affected 300,000 computers in March 1999. Hyponnen said the virus had spread twice as fast as Melissa in the first 10 hours since the company identified the virus on computers. Microsoft Corp., Ford Motor Co., Archer Daniels Midland Co., Vodafone AirTouch Plc, and the Mayo Clinic medical center in Rochester, Minn., were just a few of the organizations affected. The virus appears to have been sent from the Philippines by someone operating under the pseudonym ''Spyder,'' citing a print-out of the virus program, said Britain's Consumers' Association. The virus comes in an e-mail that says ''ILOVEYOU'' in the subject line. With the e-mail comes an attachment, which, when opened using Microsoft Outlook software, sends the virus to the e-mail addresses stored within the software, researchers said. Once the virus infects the computer, it can destroy certain files not only on the user's own hard drive, but also other files on networks to which the user is connected. ''It can slow down e-mail systems, crash computer networks and potentially destroy important files,'' said David Chess, a researcher with International Business Machines Corp. Microsoft Corp., for its part, said the virus was not indicative of any particular vulnerabilty associated with Microsoft Outlook. ''Viruses are really an industry-wide issue,'' said Scott Culp, program manager for Microsoft's security response center. ''They can be written for any platform. They can be written to use a variety of e-mail clients. ''In this case the virus author chose to target Outlook probably because it gave him better reach,'' he said. ''There isn't a security vulnerability in Outlook involved in this at all,'' Culp said. The attachment can also be sent through Internet Relay Chats (IRC), chat rooms accessible over the Web. Sal Viveros, group manager for Network Associates Inc.'s Total Virus Defense product, said the virus had also been transmitted over pagers and faxes, although the virus cannot spread via fax. The Federal Bureau of Investigation said it was investigating the matter to determine whether there have been any violations of the federal Computer Abuse Act. The ''Love Bug'' virus infected the Pentagon and other government computers, but did not affect any classified systems. ''We have found absolutely no evidence that this has infected classified computer programs,'' Defense Department spokesman Ken Bacon told Reuters. CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said the impact of the so-called ''Love Bug'' on the spy agency's computers was ''negligible.'' ''There were a handful of isolated cases on our unclassified systems that were reported and dealt with. But it has had absolutely no impact on our classified systems,'' Mansfield said. White House spokesman Jake Siewert said the virus had not gotten through the White House system. ''It hasn't affected operations at the White House,'' he said. ''There have been some reports around the government about it. The White House has taken some measures to secure its system. Our cybersecurity people are on top of it.'' The State Department said it detected the virus before it could do any damage. ''We found it in time to block ourselves off and then we got the virus fix, and now we are going through and eradicating it,'' said spokesman Richard Boucher. The British Parliament was also affected, with London's House of Commons shutting down its e-mail system for about two hours Thursday to safeguard against the virus. F-Secure's Hypponen said the virus was targeting computer music and graphic files in formats such as JPEG, MPEG2 and MP3. As a result, Hyponnen said several European publishing companies had lost their digital photo archives, including a local publisher in Sweden and a multinational one, but he declined to name the companies. He also said his company had been contacted by a radio station in Central Europe that had had its digital music archives wiped out. ''It is growing quickly...and now that the U.S. has opened up, the virus will spread like wildfire,'' he told Reuters. ''It will probably not die out at the weekend as everyone will still be upgrading their systems against viruses, so it's unlikely to be quiet until Monday.'' Hyponnen's company, previously known as Data Fellows Corp., is headquartered in San Jose, Calif. Stock market investors seized on the attack as evidence of growing need for computer security tools and pushed up the shares of anti-virus companies -- more than 20 percent in the case of McAfee.com and Trend Micro . Other beneficiaries included Check Point Software of Israel and Baltimore Technologies of Ireland. Those infected appeared to be limited to users of Microsoft Outlook, and only if users opened the accompanying attachment. Software makers like Computer Associates International Inc., Network Associates Inc. and Symantec Corp. have tools that can detect and eradicate the virus available for download on their Web sites. Reut18:30 05-04-00