Vol. 19, No. 30

May 10, 2000

Love Bug's bite small at UD

On Thursday, May 4, e-mail users around the world were bitten by a rapidly spreading electronic prank dubbed "The Love Bug," which took advantage of certain features in Microsoft's Outlook and Outlook Express e-mail programs. While most of the University uses Netscape Messenger, Pine or other non-Microsoft e-mail programs, Kathy Beardsley, Information Technologies/Help Center, said staff there received many calls from people afraid their computers would become infected. But only a few people actually had a problem. Beth Miller, Information Technologies/User Services, agreed that this virus had minimal impact on UD e-mail users. "Many people may have received the virus," she said, "but because we e-mailed warnings to departments about it, most people deleted the virus rather than infecting their systems." Miller said that by 9:30 a.m., Thursday, the Help Center web page [http://www.udel.edu /help/] had a virus warning posted; by 10:30 a.m., the antidote was available by 11 a.m., an alert was available from the University's home page. "There are 359 Microsoft Outlook users in Facilities and in different parts of Hullihen Hall. Of those, only six were infected," Mike Parisi, Facilities, reported. "We had them all up and running by early that afternoon." "We all pulled together and dealt with the situation quickly," Beardsley said. "The cooperation among staff in all parts of IT and in many of our user departments helped keep the problem under control." Miller said the incident underscores "how important it is for all of us to be vigilant and keep our systems' anti-virus protection current." For more information on protecting the computer from viruses, visit [http://www.udel. edu/ topics/virus/drsol/]. For more information about eradicating problems caused by The Love Bug, visit [http://www. udel. edu/help/virus.html]. – Richard Gordon