Category: Tech

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Here’s a strange question for you. Have you ever loved someone so much that you create something in their name? Not like a creepy shrine or anything like that, I mean create something and let it loose on the internet for it to wreak havoc on the world.

If you haven’t, then you’re a part of the unlucky club as most people haven’t experienced that kind of love. Well… I say love but it very well could be just wanting a good “fun hugging” time and things just didn’t work out because well, money.

It kind of makes the world go round. However, let me script to you someone who has and how the internet went ablaze with the “You got mail” era.

50 Networks of Melissa

Back in the heyday of AOL (America Online), there once was a virus called “Melissa”. I know someone is probably offended and wondering why their name is a computer virus that may be oddly categorized wrong since worms replicate themselves throughout a network, which is what this “virus” did.

I’m not going to get into the politics of it. Just know this virus was created and released, and many people were upset. Melissa (sorry for anyone known by this name and reading this), is what is called a “macro virus” – meaning this virus was written in the same language Microsoft Word and Excel were developed in.

Melissa (again, sorry, I didn’t choose the name) would hide in spreadsheets and activate as soon as you open the file, once opened triggers malware made to wreak havoc on your machine and further spread the virus to the edges of your contacts list and theirs and so on and so on. Melissa was the kind of gal that kept on giving.

Breaking AOL and Beyond

You may be wondering, who was this madman or madwoman, it’s wrong to assume the gender nowadays, that created this virus in the name of love. Look at no other person than David Lee Smith.

David chose to make use of the confusion surrounding the internet and email at the time since the internet or web1 was in its early stages. I don’t see how there was that much confusion, it was either you have mail or you don’t have mail. It seems pretty straightforward if you ask me, but you didn’t so whatever. Rambling aside, David, in late March of 1999, hijacked an AOL account and used it to post a file on an Internet newsgroup name “alt. sex”.

The post was promising a really good time because it offered over a dozen free passwords to websites where you had to pay for adult content. Posting like that nowadays wouldn’t have much of an effect since most of what you want to watch is free however, I am aware there are a number of you out there who are broken and may need to find some “harder material”. Like cats being shuffled around in duffle bags, Z-Daddy isn’t judging.

Oh, and he chose to name this virus Melissa after a stripper that he was into. I’m guessing the story is, he fell in love, and she said you don’t have any more money, he got depressed and created a virus, giving it her name to make her famous.

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Setting Fire to the Network

So, what were the effects of Melissa’s presence? Well aside from overloading email servers at more than 300 corporations, government agencies included, no the government is not happy when you mess with them however they are giddy when they get to mess with you, it ended up shutting them down entirely along with costing $80 million in damages.

The virus functionality worked in the form of phishing, where you would open an email and click on an attachment, the infected file would then activate and read to the computer’s storage where it would create an Outlook Global Address. After this, the virus would then send copies of itself to the addresses read.

So in a nutshell, this would get into your machine, find your list of contacts, and begin its great journey spreading itself down everyone’s cornhole. Psychotic ex strippers…am I right?

Protection Against Sirens

You don’t need to worry about this Melissa getting into your life and mucking it up anymore, well for the most part. The news spread fast enough to slow the spread allowing cybersecurity professionals to contain and restore their networks. However, this doesn’t mean that you’re free to run around clicking on links promising you a good time.

There is a wide array of viruses out on the internet that have the same attributes as Melissa. But ways you could prevent her from ever knocking on your door…well, one way is not forgetting to tip your bartender and close your tab.

Always follow good bar patron best practices. When checking your email, if you find you have to take a double look because something seems grammatical or misspelled, for example, “h0w ar e    you” versus “how are you”. If the email you received came from someone you know, it’s always a good thing to double-check with them to confirm that they sent it.

Always use an antivirus/antimalware/antispyware and make sure your operating system is up to date as patches for any vulnerabilities would include improving the safety of not only your computer but your wallet as well.

But to protect yourself entirely is just to use common sense and if it looks phishy, then don’t engage, and delete it immediately. On the internet Melissa has friends and they can do the same thing as her, if not better, just when you thought she was one of a kind.

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Think there was something I missed or may have gotten wrong about Melissa? Script a comment about it down below.