The love bug virus sort-of made a mess of my week in May of 2000, so here's a snippet that I whipped out that uses my week to good effect.
Disclaimer: The Sentinel and it's characters belong to Pet Fly and Paramount. No money has been made or will be make from the writing of this story.
Love bites
by Patricia A. Swan
Dr. Blair Sandburg looked at the computer screen, then picked up the phone and dialed a number he knew by heart.
"Simon. Have everyone shut down their email, and then call tech support and tell them that there's a virus replicating in the PD's computers. I've just gotten copies from Rafe's and Joel's email accounts. The name of the attachment is LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs."
He jerked the phone away from his ear just in time to save his hearing from Simon's roar, still wincing a bit anyway. Although he heartily agreed with Simon's sentiments about the virus maker, he did wish he'd make his opinion known at a slightly lower volume. The bang as Simon slammed the phone down was clearly audible, and Blair chuckled slightly.
He dialed again, and spoke to the system administrator for the university's computer system. He knew Hank was on a wireless headset, so he listened to the soft-voiced muttering and cussing, and then the tapping of keys and the sound of a computer powering down.
/Thanks for the warning, Blair. From the amount of loading in the mail queues, you're not the only one around here that's gotten it. I just pulled the mail server. Won't stop replication, but I can halt propagation. Soon as I get a handle on what's going on I'll bring it back up without the LAN connection and start cleaning out the mail queues. That'll give us a starting point for finding out who's infected and clean their systems out./
"Good luck. I've been trying to get into McAffee's website to see if they've got a virus description yet, and the servers must be totally slammed."
/Try drsolomon dot com. It's McAffee's sister company at Network Associates though they run separate websites and software packages./
In the background, Blair could hear Hank's keyboard rattling as he did something, then Blair's attention was riveted by the viral description he'd just pulled up.
"God, man, this thing's Melissa on Steroids. It's got a real Jones for multimedia and web files, and has a Trojan attached, too."
/From the information zdnet has on their site, it's made it from Asia to Rainier with stops at the US Senate, UK House of Commons, and universities and corporations to numerous to mention in about . . . six or eight hours? That can't be right. Damn./
Hank tapped more keys, then sighed. /This is gonna be one bloody bitch to clean up after, Blair. It has to have Outlook to propagate, but it can still replicate from any Windows email package that launches that attachment and has the Windows Scripting Host-probably 95 percent of the Windows machines on campus./
"Anything I can do to help?"
/See what the damage is for me in Hargrove, and spread the word in your classes that we need to find and clean every contaminated machine. Wish I could just get it thorough people's heads not to launch mystery attachments./
There was a soft click as Hank disconnected. Blair didn't envy the sys admin the coming hours and days. He shut down his own computer and headed for the Anthropology office. It was going to be a very long day.
