12:52 p.m. - 9 May 2001
Viruses
I had just started an entry about being away when we got hit with a virus. We use Outlook here, so we're open to all kinds of things. This one in particular is a VBS script/worm that replicates by sending itself to everyone.
What's interesting is that my officemate sent me an email earlier today with an attachment. I scanned that one before opening it, just because I'm paranoid. I told my boss just a little while ago that you certainly do not want to open any attachment with a ".vbs" exension. So this virus that shows up? .vbs extension. As soon as I saw the first email I knew it was a virus and didn't open the attachment. I called down to our help desk and not only did they know about it, they were swamped already. I've seen ten copies of it already, easily. What I have not seen is a message from IS telling people not to open it. Amazing, really.
What I find somewhat amusing is that it's pretty obvious who started the whole thing, and who exactly has been spreading it. Now we know who blindly opens attachments without thinking.
Heh. There was just an overhead page that the email server was down. No kidding. IS never did announce that it was a virus, so people kept opening the attachment. I've seen half a dozen names send it on. I bet these people are going to be a little more careful about attachments in the future.
This is actually the first time I've been involved in a widespread virus outbreak like this. At my last job, we used Groupwise, which had its own problems but didn't spread viruses as easily as Outlook. I was there when the love bug virus hit, but it didn't get sent to me. In talking with one of the IS guys later, it seems there were a few outbreaks of it, but the virus got caught relatively quickly. I've found viruses on our machines at home, but I'm semi-paranoid, so I update virus definitions on a very regular basis and scan once a week. And when I scan, I scan everything, not just program files.
Of course, the fact that I hang out on an urban legends site means that I know about many of the virus hoaxes, too. Our IS director actually sent a warning about two of those, but since he included a bunch of information about viruses in general I didn't really say anything. That, and the small matter of the fact that he is Lee's boss, and he likes his job.
Two hours later, and things are back up, but it's still controlled chaos downstairs. Lee is very glad that he is not a technician. I'm still getting copies of the virus with timestamps of just a few minutes ago. This would be because there still has not been any sort of broadcast message telling people not to open it. Sometimes I wonder.
