It's called the W97M/Prilissa virus. But a better name for it would be the Grinch virus.
Anti-virus researchers at Network Associates Inc. said Friday that 10 Fortune 500 companies on three continents have been hit with a new virus called W97/Prilissa. Prilissa is a nasty variant on two better known attacks -- the Melissa worm and the PRI virus. The virus depends on the Windows 95 and 98 operating systems and the Word 97 word processing application.
If opened, it will e-mail itself to the first 50 names on a computer's Outlook or Outlook Express e-mail client.
"This is probably the fastest infection rate we've seen since Melissa," said Sal Viveros, antivirus product manager at Network Associates, in Santa Clara, Calif. The virus uses macro commands similar to those of Melissa to replicate itself.
But the virus itself won't go off until Christmas day. That means it won't have much of an impact on companies, which aren't likely to be open on that day, even if it should go undetected. But there is a big threat to home PC users, particularly unsuspecting children logging onto the computer to play with their new games on Christmas.
The Dr. Suess analogies are endless.
