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Date: April 12, 1999

Section: Editorial

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Title: A Lesson From Melissa

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Computer networks around the globe were recently brought to their knees by the Melissa virus. An investigation led to a Monmouth County resident who was charged with creating it in his Aberdeen condo. Melissa, delivered as an e-mail message with an attached Microsoft Word document, causes infected computers to whip off 50 self copies and e-mail them to people in the users” address book.

The damage done by this benign virus–it did not destroy files, it merely overwhelms networks–ought to start network managers thinking. The chief protection that nature offers organisms against disease is genetic diversity. Even a minor illness can cause serious damage if its natural hosts have no in-bred resistance. Scientists fear that an entire population–the Florida Manatee, for example, whose numbers are greatly diminished–could be felled by a single virus.

And yes, this does have something to do with business in New Jersey.

For the past decade, business has been rallying around Microsoft”s computer software. More than 90% of desktop computers run Microsoft Windows. Many of these run Office, too, including Word 97. The Melissa attack, though, showed a risk in having too many computers running the same programs: It provides an easy target for hackers. People using Macintoshes or PCs without Word suffered only if the targeted machines cranked out enough e-mails to collapse the company network. Most businesses joined the Windows plus Word world because it is powerful, convenient and standard. The Melissa debacle suggests that network managers might need to rethink their blind focus on uniformity and find a way to plan in some diversity. Otherwise, their companies could end up like the manatee.