LONDON -- A computer virus operating from e-mail messages that say "I Love You" shut down the U.K. parliament's computers Thursday and clogged systems at many businesses.
The virus can affect any company that uses the Microsoft Word and Microsoft Outlook e-mail system. The virus comes as an e-mail attachment labeled ILOVEYOU or LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.Among the companies that acknowledged they had been affected were Compaq Computer Corp. Ford Motor Co. and Akzo Nobel.
The virus is believed to have originated in Manila early Thursday, said Graham Cluley, a spokesman for anti-virus specialist Sophos. He said the virus would be costly to the businesses affected.
Cluley said Sophos has advised its clients to switch off their e-mail systems.
The House of Commons system was one of the first to crash, the Leader of the House Margaret Beckett told legislators.
The virus is "clever because it seems like a love letter and it appears to come from someone you know, so you're very tempted to open it," said Cluley.
Jack Clark, spokesman for virus-busting software company Network Associates, said the "ILOVEYOU" virus bore the signature of "Barockyt, a know maker of viruses. It's extremely widespread, affecting organizations across all sectors globally. It replicates itself so widely that it generates an enormous amount of network traffic."
When the attachment is downloaded, the virus automatically searches for all the names in the victim's directory, which typically includes almost anyone who received an e-mail in the past, and sends them the e-mail, over and over. When any of the recipients opens the attachment at the other end, it then sends back a series of e-mails to the sender as well as finding new victims.
"It was like a nightmare," said Stella Dinevics, a secretary in the London office of Fitness Holdings Inc., a Pleasanton, California-based chain of fitness centers, who triggered the virus when she opened an e-mail addressed to her boss. "It sent hundreds and hundreds of e-mails. We had to shut down the server for a half hour to be able to delete the messages."
"It was a clogging problem more than anything," said David Giampaolo, her boss and managing director of the company's European arm. "It was bizarre, acting on its own to send messages to anybody in my database."
Computer specialists also said the virus does permanent damage to a number of files.
"It's installing a time bomb, waiting for it to explode," said Rolf Rennemo, technical director for security software company Trend Micro Inc.
The virus overwrites audio and visual files, those that include extensions such as jpeg and mp3, replacing them with copies of the virus, he said.
It also copies the names of some other files and hides itself alongside them, he said. When the victim later downloads any of those files, it start the virus operating again.