Melissa Smith

The Melissa virus, first detected around March 26, 1999, was a highly contagious macro virus primarily targeting Microsoft Word and Outlook. It propagated by emailing itself to contacts within an infected user's Outlook address book, leading to widespread network congestion and system slowdowns globally. This self-replicating nature made it one of the most impactful and costly outbreaks of its time, forcing many organizations to temporarily disable their email systems to contain the spread. Experts estimated the financial damages to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

The virus was created by David L. Smith, who initially released it via an AOL account on an "alt.sex" internet newsgroup. Its mechanism involved a Visual Basic script within infected Word documents that would copy itself to a template file. Upon opening an infected attachment, the virus would then access Outlook's address book and email copies of itself to the first 50 contacts. Melissa was compatible with Word 97, Word 2000, and Outlook 97 or 98. A secondary function of the virus would insert a specific quote into documents under certain conditions, referencing an episode of "The Simpsons."

The Melissa virus emerged in late March 1999, designed to exploit vulnerabilities in Microsoft Word and Outlook. Its primary method of transmission was through email attachments, specifically infected Microsoft Word documents. When a user opened such a document, the embedded Visual Basic script would execute. This script would then access the user's Microsoft Outlook address book and automatically send copies of the infected document to the first 50 contacts listed. This rapid, automated distribution caused significant strain on network resources and email servers worldwide, including those of major corporations like Microsoft and Intel, as well as government entities such as the U.S. Marine Corps. The virus specifically targeted versions like Word 97 and 2000, and Outlook 97 or 98.

The widespread and swift propagation of the Melissa virus led to considerable disruption, impacting an estimated 100,000 industrial and work computers and hijacking approximately one million email accounts. The overwhelming volume of emails overloaded Microsoft Exchange servers and other critical email infrastructure, forcing many organizations to temporarily shut down their email systems to prevent further spread. The Computer Emergency Response Team reported numerous calls from affected organizations, highlighting the scale of the outbreak. While the virus was largely contained within a few days due to these measures, the complete removal from infected systems took longer. At the time of its emergence, Melissa was recognized as the fastest-spreading email worm.

Although the virus was initially credited to an alias, "Kwyjibo," by comparing unique identifiers in infected documents, investigations traced its origin back to David L. Smith. Smith was arrested on April 1, 1999, in New Jersey following a collaborative effort involving law enforcement agencies and AOL. He was accused of causing approximately $80 million in damages. In December 1999, Smith pleaded guilty to charges including computer theft and damaging a computer program. He was subsequently sentenced in May 2002 to 20 months in federal prison and ordered to pay a $5,000 fine.

“Twenty-two points, plus triple-word-score, plus 50 points for using all my letters. Game's over. I'm outta here.”