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Melissa virus

   Also found in: Wikipedia 0.03 sec.

Melissa virus

A Word macro virus that was unleashed in the spring of 1999. It sent an e-mail message with a list of pornographic Web sites to the first 50 names in the user's Microsoft Outlook address book. The subject field contained the phrase "An important message from" followed by the name of the user so that recipients thought it was coming from a known source. After the porn transmission, the virus attached itself to your system so that future Word documents you created and attached via e-mail were sent to the first 50 addresses in your recipients' address book if they used Microsoft Outlook as the mail client.



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The center has played a key role in coordinating responses to major security events such as the Code Red worm, Melissa virus, and most recently the MS Blaster worm and the Sobig.
David Smith is still waiting to be sentenced after pleading guilty two years ago for writing the infamous Melissa virus -- so named after a stripper who kept turning away his advances.
What makes the Redmond robbery even more distressing is the fact that Microsoft's lax attitude about security was responsible for the decade's other super-destructive hack: 1999's Melissa virus, which caused what many experts estimate at billions of dollars in damage, both in terms of data loss and productivity.
 
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