April 28, 1999
Wall Street Journal Interactive: Tech Center
Chernobyl Virus Takes Heaviest Toll On Machines in Asia and Middle East
Associated Press
LONDON -- The Chernobyl computer virus struck hundreds of thousands of computers in Asia and the Middle East, with Turkey and South Korea each reporting 300,000 computers damaged.
The virus, which is believed to have originated in Taiwan and attacks Windows 95 and Windows 98 files, was designed to strike on Monday's 13th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. In affected computers, the virus attempts to erase the hard-drive and write gibberish into the computer's system settings, called its BIOS, which would prevent the machine from being restarted.
Bill Pollak, a spokesman for the Computer Emergency Response Team at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, said a "large number" of home users were affected in the U.S. after people returned home Monday night and turned on their computers.
He declined to estimate how many computers were affected, but said CERT received many e-mail reports on the virus.
Computers in Asia and the Middle East appeared to be hit hardest.
The virus infected some computers at an airport in Izmir, on Turkey's Aegean coast; erased computer memories at a military academy in Ankara; crashed computers at the state-run radio and television station; and slowed down transactions at a number of banks, Turkey's Radikal newspaper reported.
"Turkey was caught unprepared," said Mustafa Ucoklar, an electronics engineer. "The warnings were there but nobody took any notice of them."
South Korean officials also reported about 300,000 computers were hit in government offices, schools and businesses.
"We have been careless and lacked an understanding of this virus," said Vice Information and Communications Minister Ahn Byung-yop. "We need to strengthen our alert system and public education on computer viruses."
Ahn estimated the computer bug has hit nearly 4% of computers in South Korea, by far the worst attack of its kind reported in the country. The national Yonhap News Agency, quoting industry officials, estimated the virus may have affected up to 15% of all computers and could cost South Korea up to $250 million.
"In the past two days, we had 2,500 calls for help," said Hwang Mi-kyong, a spokeswoman for Ahn's Laboratory Ltd., which develops programs that can detect and wipe out computer viruses. The company usually receives 200 calls a day for help, she said.
Hundreds of computers in the United Arab Emirates were affected, including some at the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, the English-language Khaleej Times reported. The Gulf News daily reported that up to 10% of all computer users in the Emirates were affected.
Businesses, banks and publishing houses in India were shut down Monday and information worth millions of dollars was lost, the Indian Express newspaper reported. At least 10,000 Indian computer owners reported being affected by the virus.
In Bangladesh, the virus struck at least 10,000 computers. "This was the country's worst computer disaster," Ahmed Hasan, general secretary of the Computer Society, said by telephone.
At least 7,600 computers were damaged by the virus in China, state-run media reported. Liu Xu, General Manager of Beijing-based Ruixin Company, China's biggest antivirus high-tech company, estimated that 100,000 computers had been affected.
"All of our telephones have been busy since yesterday, jammed by computer users from various sectors and all the provinces," Mr. Liu said.
About 2,000 computers in Norway were affected, according to the Aftenposten daily newspaper. "This is definitely the worst virus attack ever," said Jan Kristensen, director of Norman ASA, Norway's largest virus-fighting company.
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