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What is the Melissa virus?

Answer

W97M.Melissa.A (also known as W97M.Mailissa) is a typical macro virus which, when a user opens an infected document, will attempt to e-mail a copy of this document to up to 50 other people, using Microsoft Outlook. The email message has most frequently been reported to contain the following Subject header:

Subject: Important Message From <username>

Where <username> is the full name of the person sending the message.

The body of the message contains the following text:

Here is that document you asked for … don’t show anyone else 😉

When a user opens the attached infected .doc file with Microsoft Word97 or Word2000, the macro virus is immediately executed if macros are enabled.

When the virus was released, millions of email messages results and were sent around the world. This caused some messaging servers to fail and cripple internal company communications systems. Some claims were made that this virus caused billions of dollars of administrator’s and user’s time in dealing with all the errant messages, recovering failed systems and opportunities lost as a result of the failed communications.

Those using GMS Anti-Virus were protected from the virus and were not affected in any way. This illustrates the power of integration within GMS and its low cost of ownership.

See Also:

Keywords:melissa virs anti-virus vpp disinfect worm

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