Just this past year, a type of virus has cropped up, making life miserable for thousands of people. It's not some new strain of flu but a computer virus that scrambles documents and inserts words randomly.
This new set of viruses, which first appeared late last year, is classified as Word macroviruses. Instead of deleting your hard drive or interfering with your computer's operating system, it scrambles documents in Microsoft Word, a word-processing program sold by Microsoft Corp."What makes Word macroviruses significant is that they have spread like wildfire," said Jim Azevedo, a spokesman for McAfee Corp. The company designs anti-viral software. "It's the first virus that can be spread over the Internet."
Word macroviruses are spread by opening a contaminated Microsoft Word document, regardless of whether the document is downloaded off the Net or given to you by a friend.
Sixty to 70 Word macroviruses have been identified around the world, said Dale Cross, a spokesman for Norman Data Defense Systems, a company that develops and sells anti-virus software.
Two or three Excel macroviruses are just beginning to show up. Although these macroviruses constitute only a small number of about 10,000 viruses in the world, they now cause more than half of all virus infections.
"These viruses are not as destructive as those that eliminate your data, but any kind of external manipulation becomes important," said Cross.
A major problem with macroviruses is that they are so easily spread, especially in large corporations. In one notorious example, the chief executive officer of a corporation sent a contaminated thank-you letter to all 10,000 employees. Within hours, the entire computer system of the company, which would not disclose its name for security reasons, was contaminated.
In many instances, a virus infection can be more embarrassing than damaging.
"If you are a security-related company, such as data security or an auditor, the wazzu virus could cause you to lose business," said Jimmy Kuo, an anti-virus researcher at McAfee.
That strain of virus inserts the word "wazzu" randomly through an affected document.
A recent study by the National Computer Security Association, a private organization, found 98 percent of medium and large organizations in North America have had at least one computer-virus encounter.
On the average, recovery cost an average of $8,100.
The yearly cost of all computer viruses in terms of lost time, cleanup and repair is more than $2 billion.
In January and February this year, a single virus called Word.concept infected more than one-third of the sites surveyed and was responsible for half of total viral encounters.
Macroviruses aren't restricted to large businesses.
"We see macroviruses at least once a day," said Josh Franta, a computer consultant at the Arts and Sciences Computing Laboratory at Washington University.
"It randomly deleted words and sentences from three-quarters of my document," complained Andrew Emke, a student at Washington University. "I was on the verge of a breakdown."
No one is sure how the macroviruses originated.
Some people believe that macroviruses, which specifically target Microsoft applications, were designed to target Microsoft Corp., which has a large share of the computer software market.
Macroviruses have become so common that virus construction kits have been designed under such pseudonyms as Nightmare Joker and Wild Worker and are easily available over the Web. Most virus codes do not get tested thoroughly and, consequently, do not work.
With an up-to-date virus scanning tool, which can be bought from companies such as Symantec or McAfee or from a software dealer, viruses are easily identified and eliminated.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.)