City Avoids Bug's Byte

By Teresa Rochester

The "Love Bug's" bite was felt from the White House to the British Parliament, but computers throughout City Hall barely felt the pesky computer bug's sting.

City technology workers promptly squashed the nasty bug after it appeared in five city e-mail boxes last Thursday. The bug is not a bug or a virus but a worm that wends its way through computer servers, changing the names of graphic files, which causes computer programs that rely on the images to fail.

The bug landed in the e-mail boxes dressed as an e-mail titled "ILOVEYOU," which has been circulated around the globe thanks to the worm's ability to attach itself to e-mail address books and send itself out to unsuspecting recipients.

"The e-mail subject is one that's really deceptive but it's also very attractive," said Jory Wolf, the city's chief information officer. "We actually came through unscathed."

Wolf said that the five infected computers belonged to the e-mail recipients and were not owned by the city and that the Public Electronic Network, which provides free e-mail and public information for residents, was not infected.

City technology workers shut down the city's external Internet e-mail gateway, which delayed the delivery of e-mail, upon discovering the interest- piquing-but-dangerous e-mail at approximately 9:30 a.m. The e-mail system was back up at 4:30 p.m. after workers had a chance to scan the delayed e-mail and purge contaminated ones.

Wolf said more than 15 "ILOVEYOU" e-mails were waiting in the pipeline to be delivered to city employees.

"We realized we've got to do something," said Wolf. "We developed a program and deleted all of them."

Wolf said the "ILOVE YOU" worm is more dangerous than the "Melissa Virus," which attached itself to e-mail in Microsoft Outlook e-mail systems. The virus, which struck earlier this year, sent the virus to the first 50 e-mail addresses listed in a person's address book and infected existing programs by going after all the listed e-mail addresses.

The "ILOVEYOU" worm only attacks PCs with Outlook Express e-mail. Wolf said the city had a big advantage. "We don't use Outlook Express," Wolf said. "Because of that we did not pass it around internally."

The source of the "ILOVEYOU" worm has been traced to the Philippines. On Tuesday one suspect was released pending the examination of evidence. The suspect's girlfriend will also be questioned. The Philippines has few laws crafted to address Internet crimes.

The "Love Bug" has infected millions of machines in at least 20 countries. Wolff said computer users will likely face an increase in virus attacks. In fact, several copycats have popped up in the "Love Bug's" wake, including viruses disguised as an e-mail joke and a mother's day gift receipt.

"People use this as a destructive tool," said Wolf. "This kind of activity could be related to terrorism. Government sites are prone. We are now downloading new files to be prepared. Times have changed. Now everyone is based on a common technology."