Melissa Virus

The Melissa macro virus distributes itself through electronic mail attachments. If a message similar to the following description has been received, but the attachment to it has not been opened (via Microsoft Word), the computer itself has NOT been infected with the Melissa macro virus; in that case, simply delete the message.

Mail containing the infected attachment has a subject line of:

  Subject:  Important Message From   

where is the name of the individual from whom the message was sent. The body of the message consists of:

  Here is the document you asked for ...
       don't show anyone else ;-)

along with an attachment file with a name such as: list.doc The attached file is a Microsoft Word file the content of which is typically the file that the sender had open at the time his or her computer was infected with the Melissa Macro virus. If you receive a message such as this, DELETE it and do NOT open the attachment; once deleted, Empty the Trash to remove all traces of the message.

If you receive a message such as this and you open the attachment, either your virus detection software will delete the Melissa macro virus (if the software macro virus definition file (MACRO.DEF) has been updated as of 3/27/99) or the virus will be installed. If the virus is installed, obtain the latest virus detection software and run it to clean the Melissa macro virus.

If you install the virus and happen to be running Microsoft Outlook as your electronic mail program, the virus gets nasty. The Melissa macro virus will mail itself (along with the most recent Word document you were working on) in the format described above to the first 50 names it finds in each of your address books. At that point, clean the virus with virus detection software and phone or otherwise contact the people in your mailing list and tell them to delete the prior message you sent them.