The Nugget Newspaper - News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon

A global epidemic has hit Sisters.

This past week email viruses have plagued most users from big business to small, including the personal user. The plague is costing the U.S. business sector billions of dollars.

"This is a huge problem," said Jon Renner, director of OutlawNet. "Everybody is getting clobbered by it. I've had several customers call and they're angry at me."

This strain of computer virus arrives in an email attachment. As soon as the user opens the attachment the virus, which is a program, then directs the computer to misbehave in several ways.

The virus is called [email protected] It comes as returned mail with an attachment and a message that says the recipient was unable to get it.

The recipient is someone from the user's address book so it looks like the user sent the message. The user doesn't remember sending the message so he goes to open the attachment to refresh his memory and the virus is let loose upon the system.

Now the computer has become infected and it will immediately send itself to everyone in the user's address book.

To compound the problem, the virus puts a back door into the host machine, which makes it easier for another virus coming along to get into the system.

When the follow-up virus comes along it can allow others to watch or record your keystrokes.

"If you buy something from Amazon on one of these infected computers they could get your VISA number," said Renner. "This follow-up virus is called 'Key Logger'."

Having an old version of anti-virus software will do no good because these viruses mutate on a daily basis according to Renner. Some of the viruses have been programmed to mutate. W32 has mutated into several others in the course of last week.

"It's (the anti-virus industry) always a step behind. If an anti-virus software company finds a new virus at 10 a.m. they'll probably have a fix for it after lunch," Renner explained.

It's similar to antibiotics: "You have to take the full dose and it has got to be current or it's not going to work."

Renner said, "On our own systems (OutlawNet) here we have very elaborate anti-virus and anti-spam protection for our customers. On January 29, we had 143,540 messages in 24 hours. Of that figure, our anti-spam/virus filter removed all but 9,406. Half of these were spam or contained a virus. That makes 3 percent of the originals legitimate messages. That's how prolific this thing is."

Who is behind all this?

"It could be almost anyone," said Renner. "One thing's for sure, it's probably not a 10-year-old kid."

DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Project Agency), the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Trade Commission are monitoring these viruses.

"When you take up 97 percent of the assets on the internet that's a big deal," said Renner. "Microsoft has got a $250,000 reward for information, but that's chump change compared to the size of the problem," Renner said.

This email virus does not affect Macintosh systems or Linux-based computers.

Renner said that as this threat creates larger and larger economic damage, the federal government seeks a way to get its proverbial foot in the door of the private information superhighway.

Users have feared federal involvement for a long time.

"We can't keep putting 90-95 percent of our resources at this kind of problem. I know the economics are going to force a change," said Renner. "The government has been talking about putting a filtering system at the backbone level, like AT&T, VIAnet, or one of the companies that provide fiber connectivity between cities. People don't want to see the government get involved though."

Cost and suffering from computer viruses is not a black and white issue.

"It's weird. Our little company (OutlawNet) has gotten a lot more computer repair business because of this and you might think it's a good thing, but at the same time we've had to spend more money on protection," said Renner.

Anti-virus companies sell more products during these epidemics, but they also have increasing laboratory costs.

Renner's advice to users: Don't open attachments unless you know you're supposed to receive one.

"The freedom to communicate also comes with a risk that the freedom can be used for bad purposes and that's what has happened here," Renner said.