City avoids very serious computer virus attack

By KEVIN FAYLE

Cupertino had a brief run-in with the "Anna Kournikova" virus on Feb. 12, but early detection and quick action prevented a spread that could have potentially clogged the city's email server.

The virus struck around the world on Monday, causing many email services to fail under the strain of huge volumes of emails.

The virus comes in the form of an email, which holds an attachment, supposedly containing pictures of female tennis sensation, Anna Kournikova. When the user opens the attachment, however, the unwelcome visitor goes to work. The virus burrows into the Microsoft Outlook email program, replicates itself, and sends itself out to email addresses listed in the infected computer's address book.

The virus does not appear to have any truly damaging effects, besides the problems it causes with email traffic. When it activates, the program brings up the website of a Dutch company apparently unrelated to the virus, but does not harm or steal files on the infected computer. A 20 year-old man turned himself in to police in the Netherlands on Valentine's Day, claiming responsibility for the bug.

The city avoided any problems with the virus, thanks to its Information technology manager, Mariyah Serratos, who jumped into action to prevent the spread of the bug. "It wasn't actually that big of a deal," she said. "It was more annoying than anything else."

Two city employees opened the attachment and the virus began to send itself out over the city's email. Serratos managed to shut down the server before a third person could set the virus in motion, though. After that she began work on cleaning out mailboxes which had received the virulent email. "There was no overload at all," she said.

The city uses a Norton anti-virus program, which Serratos says they usually update about once a week. In fact, the city had just updated the program the previous afternoon, before Norton became aware of the Anna virus. "We'll start updating two or three times a week now," she says.

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