Virus spread through e-mails claiming to concern attacks
By Daily Bruin Staff
Sept. 30, 2001 9:00 p.m.
By Hemesh Patel
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Following the Sept. 11 attacks, a computer virus was born,
exploiting the sympathies of many who log on to the World Wide
Web.
Those affected by W32/Vote, the computer virus, were lured into
opening the e-mail because the message indicated they would be
invited to a voting forum concerning the terrorist attacks.
Instead, the virus, hidden in an e-mail attachment, activated a
worm ““ an infectious computer program that makes copies of
itself ““ which contained instructions to delete all files in
the Windows directory, according to McAfee.com, a virus scan
company.
According to the McAfee.com Web site, 11 strains of the virus
have been discovered between Sept. 24 and 27.
Computers at UCLA are not at a great risk for being infected
with this virus because many campus computers have an anti-virus
program that scans e-mails for bugs. But people who do not check
their e-mails for viruses before opening them are at risk of having
W32/Vote infect their computer.
“It didn’t spread so widely because this virus is
not vastly distributed,” said Shinn Wu, a programmer for the
social sciences computer lab.
After infection, a message appears with the text, “I
promiss We WiLL Rule The World Again…By The Way, You Are Captured
By ZaCker !!!”
The worm then sends itself to all e-mail addresses listed in the
Microsoft Outlook address book.
Those with the virus are also at risk of having their hard drive
reformatted. Additionally, the worm can delete all anti-virus
software.
While UCLA may seem clear of the vote worm, another virus began
to infect computers at the Medical Center last week.
“The Nimda virus is still haunting campus entities,”
said Mike Panta, operations manager of the School of Medicine
Information Technology Services.
The high-risk virus spreads itself through mass e-mails and
network sharing and crashes the computer.
“This virus took a half an hour to 45 minutes to get
around the world, compared to older viruses that took seven
hours,” Panta said.
