When agencies battled the 'Melissa' virus in March 1999, systems administrators attributed the government's success to coordinated, timely alerts and good planning. But when the 'ILOVEYOU' virus came to town last week, the federal response was anything but coordinated, agencies said.
The "love letter" virus was followed by the "Joke" and "Mother's Day"
strains. Such mutations of the file name, text and attachment are meant
to hide the virus from the scrutiny of antivirus programs.
* ILOVEYOU. Attached file titled "LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs." Text
included "Kindly check the attached LOVELETTER coming from me."
* Mother's Day Order Confirmation. Attachment titled "mothersday.vbs."
Text included "We have attached a detailed invoice to this e-mail."
* Joke or Fwd: joke. Attachment titled "Very Funny.vbs."
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