Twenty years ago, the Melissa Virus was big news.
It was the first mass mailing virus that spread itself from systems that used Word and Outlook using macros. Using the first fifty contacts it could find, it would spread itself from user to user. Clogging up networks, overloading mail servers, and generally causing havoc.
Today, the goal of such software is to make money. The malware authors invest time and energy in their software and they want a return on that investment. Back then, the end goal of the Melissa Virus was apparently to just cause havoc, which it did very well. For some organizations, the load on the email server was too much and they shut down. While it wasn’t the goal of the software to make money, it did cause some organizations to lose money.
A researcher found the author of the virus, thanks in part to Usenet. He was sent to jail for 10 years, only serving 20 months.
Of course, we don’t see this kind of event today. Most events we see, even on broad scale such as this, have making money at the core. On the other hand, we can consider what we could learn from such an event. We created the column With the Benefit of Hindsight to examine these events. We want to know how past events changed the landscape, what we can learn from them, and what insights can we use from them to affect the future.
If there is an event that interests you, why not write a column for us on the topic. We want to hear from you on how the event changed the landscape, or changed how you reacted. Would you do things differently now from what you did then? Submit a column to https://dtrap.acm.org/ and let us hear from you.