Mike Wendland: Anna turns high priest into sinner
freep.com
The e-mail bug bites, smites an experienced tech wizard
February 14, 2001
I feel personally responsible
for the spread of the Anna
Kournikova computer virus.
I know, I was just one of
many who contributed to its
rapid worldwide spread. But
1,687 people on my Outlook
e-mail address book got the
virus. And many of them unknowingly
spread it farther.
I'm embarrassed beyond belief. I know
better.
But I was so confident. In years of
reporting on technology and despite 250
e-mails that I get every day, I have never
been hit with a virus. They are usually sent
as attachments to e-mail. I always spotted
and deleted them without opening them up.
"Never, ever, under any circumstances
open unsolicited attached e-mail files," I'd
tell people, over and over again.
I always figured those who opened an
e-mail virus were careless at the least.
Dolts at the worst. I'm now one of them.
It happened so fast. Anna arrived
mid-afternoon Monday from a trusted
source, a public relations news contact who
often sends me news releases by e-mail.
When I saw the message from him with an
attachment, I didn't think a thing of it and
clicked on it.
To tell the truth -- and prove what a geek I
really am -- I had no idea who Anna
Kournikova was. Really. It could have
been a computer program or new software
company for all I knew, rather than a
tennis star.
Well, I clicked and immediately, I knew
what I had done. It was a virus. I saw the
"send" box on my Outlook zapping off
e-mails.
"No," I groaned, quickly hitting the
shutdown button on my computer.
But it was too late. In five or six seconds,
the virus went through every name in my
e-mail address book and zapped itself off
to all 1,687 of them.
Ten minutes later, my phone rang. "Hey,
you sent me a virus," said a friend, Ken
Reynolds, somewhat incredulously.
After all, I'm "PC Mike," the computer
expert. Ken was shocked. Graciously, he
offered to send warning e-mails to several
of our mutual friends, warning them not to
open my e-mail. I have since been kidded
mercilessly and repeatedly from many of
them.
But then, more serious e-mails from people
on my address book started coming.
"I can't open your e-mail," they'd typically
and trustingly say. "I clicked on your
attachment but nothing happened."
My heart would sink with each one.
Because I knew that when they clicked,
something did happen. The click activated
the virus and then instantly sent it out to
everyone in their address book.
I got messages back from a friend who
works for one of the auto companies in
China. A family friend in Germany. A
missionary I write to in Africa. All of them,
because they trusted e-mail sent by me,
clicked on my note and unleashed even
more copies of the virus.
I started getting return e-mails containing
the virus back from many of them. That's
because I'm in their e-mail address books
and, as rapidly as the virus spread from my
computer, it spread from theirs right back
to me. At last count, I received more than
400 return copies of the virus.
By Tuesday noon, the outbreak, on my
computer and worldwide, seemed to have
been contained. That shows anti-virus
software and safe computing practices are
paying off.
The bug, we've learned, originated in the
Netherlands sometime Sunday, spread to
Europe Monday morning, then across the
Atlantic to North America.
As for me, I'm much wiser. I have learned
that no matter how much I trust someone
who sends me e-mail, to be absolutely sure
what it is that I'm opening when a file is
attached.
In this case, the Anna Kournikova file had
"jpg" written after it, which would have
normally identified it as an image file. But
if I had taken my time and looked a little
closer, I would have seen that the file really
had a ".vbs" extension, meaning it was a
visual basic script. And I knew ".vbs" files
are how e-mail viruses are often spread.
I have also beefed up the virus protection
on my computer. Because I was so
overconfident that I'd never be fooled, I
hadn't updated my software in several
months. Thus, when my PR friend sent the
infected file, the anti-virus program, my
first line of defense, didn't catch it.
All major anti-virus software makers have
simple update features that add new virus
definitions to your software as they are
discovered. I've scheduled reminders in my
calendar program to do this every two
weeks.
I've taken another precaution. I
downloaded a free program called AVG
Anti-virus (www.grisoft.com) which
automatically scans any e-mail I send out
and, if it finds a virus or ".vbs" script
hidden in it, strips it off.
When it comes to practicing safe
computing, there's no room for
overconfidence. Take it from a careless
dolt who didn't know a tennis babe from a
microchip.
Contact MIKE WENDLAND at
mwendland@freepress.com or
313-222-8861. You can also hear him talk
technology on Detroit radio stations
WXYT-AM (1270) and WWJ-AM (950). |
