BGU%NIHCU.BITNET@VMA.CC.CMU.EDU (Bruce Guthrie) (10/12/89)
[Ed. Well, this is a bit late, but...]
"'Friday the 13th' Virus Bugging Computer Users"
by Evelyn Richards
Washington Post, pg E1, Oct 12 1989
Just a hair after midnight tonight, or soon thereafter, as
unsuspecting computer users log on, malicious programs now lying
dormant inside IBM and IBM-compatible personal computers will be
unleashed to begin a reign of terror, scrambling the information
stored on the computers' hard disk.
Or so some computer-security experts say. Others believe
such fears are nothing more than a false alarm. Whether the
virus turns out to be a real threat or not, one this is
certain--the prospect of a destructive virus attack tomorrow has
sent thousands of computer users into a panic and turned up more
news reports of the virus than actual sighting of the virus
itself.
An official at International Business Machines Corp., which
is pooh-poohing the prospects of widespread havoc, reported
yesterday that the firm is getting "more press calls than
customer calls." And John McAfee, a computer security expert in
Santa Clara, Calif., has taken to calling this "a media virus."
McAfee, who spent yesterday dashing from one ringing phone to
another, is reassuring callers that "nothing is going to happen.
The virus is a phantom."
But PC czars aren't taking any chances. The wheels of
Washington have been busy grinding out warnings that the rogue
computer program, best known as the "Friday the 13th" virus,
could wrest control of a PC and effectively destroy months of
information carefully stored within it. The General Services
Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs, for
example, have distributed internal memos admonishing users to
take certain precautionary steps, among them: backing up their
data so that anything destroyed can be replaced, avoiding
software programs obtained from friends or from public
computerized "bulletin boards", and storing diskettes behind lock
and key when they're not in use.
Companies are taking similar precautions.
In McLean [Virginia], Planning Research Corp. refrained from
issuing a special advisory but instead put out the word at
departmental meetings. "We thought it would be remiss not to
warn people, but we also didn't want them to go overboard," said
Jude Franklin, general manager of the technology division.
Dennis Steinauer heads the computer security forces at the
National Institute of Standards and Technology (nee the National
Bureau of Standards), which issued an early advisory about the
virus and is partly responsible for coordinating computer
security throughout the federal government. Is Steinauer
worried?
"I'm leaving on Friday the 13th, and I haven't changed my
plans," said Steinauer, who plans to attend a conference in
Brussels.
Steinauer isn't the only computer security expert who will
be out of touch tomorrow. Some 2,300 such experts are gathered
in Baltimore this week for their annual meeting.