Virus worms its way into city halls

James Meier

NEWPORT-MESA -- A computer virus claiming to be a screen saver Tuesday

harried city officials but didn’t cause any serious problems.

The mass-mailing worm, dubbed “Goner,” was first discovered in Europe

Tuesday morning and spread worldwide through e-mail programs such as

Microsoft Outlook.

With a subject line simply reading “Hi,” the e-mail enticed its

recipients to open it. Then they discovered the message: “How are you?

When I saw this screen saver, I immediately thought about you I am in a

harry [sic], I promise you will love it!”

E-mail recipients whose curiosity got the best of them opened the

virus, which ate away at computers’ anti-virus systems, said Jeff Parker,

director of operations at the Newport Harbor Area Chamber of Commerce.

Like previous viruses sent through Microsoft Outlook, the worm then

sent similar e-mails to everyone in the victim’s address book, Parker

said.

The chamber grew infected after opening an e-mail from the Newport

Beach Visitors and Conference Bureau, said Doug Stuckey, the chamber’s

public affairs director.

Parker later used an anti-virus company’s vaccine to clean up two

computers at the chamber. Because the virus was new, such vaccines had to

be created and were not available until about noon Tuesday.

The virus also affected the city of Newport Beach where it proved

“more of a nuisance than anything else,” said Paul Malkemus, the city’s

management information systems manager.

“It slowed down the e-mail system a bit,” Malkemus said. “It required

staff to go around to everyone’s computers. The main impact was staff

time.”

The city discovered it had been affected by about 10 a.m., downloaded

the vaccine around noon and had everything “well under control by 1

p.m.,” Malkemus said, noting that Goner proved tame compared with “worse”

viruses in the past.

At the city, about 30 of 500 computers grew infected -- which wasn’t

“a large figure,” he said.

Preventive measures taken in the past probably helped, he said.

“That’s really what saved us -- educating the users and telling them

not to open unknown attachments,” Malkemus said. “Users get really

embarrassed when they find out they’re the ones who affected the system.”

The worm also kept Costa Mesa officials busy Tuesday, said Rick

Kirkbride, that city’s management information systems manager.

“We were able to put a stop to it quickly,” he said. “It was

incidental. We’ve seen far worse over the years. It caused grief more

than anything else. We spotted this one within minutes and disconnected

the e-mail server.”

In Costa Mesa City Hall, only about two or three computers were

infected, Kirkbride said. Overall, the worst side effect was shutting

down of the city’s e-mail system for half the day. Everything should be

back to normal by today, he said.