Along with the birth of this extraordinary global platform, a series of computer problems also appeared, leaving a trail of economic losses and millions of damaged computers.
The Melissa Virus
One of the most emblematic cases is that of the “Melissa virus” , which made its first attack on March 26, 1999, and which went unnoticed in thousands of pharmacies email list emails due to its female name and innovative strategy.
But why did “Melissa” cause so much damage? Computer experts say that its design, based on the most sophisticated social engineering techniques of the time, made this “evil” message reach so many people.
The email, which began with a message like “Here is what you asked for, don’t show it to anyone,” had Microsoft Word files attached, and was so disastrous that the damage it caused is estimated to have amounted to $80 million in the United States alone.
In fact, the then Internet and computing magnates such as Microsoft and Intel decided to block their access to the digital world so that this malware would not continue to penetrate their systems.
The origin of computer viruses
Since the Internet began, there have been all kinds of computer viruses . However, “Melissa” stands out for being the first one to use the email service with attachments as a propagation platform .
The most dangerous thing about this file is that it had the ability to steal your entire contact list and be sent to five of them in different batches, which made the infection spread uncontrollably to a certain extent.
Of course, at a time when backup systems were rare in the face of such cyberattacks, millions of people fell right into the trap of the creator of this malicious system.
The man, who was identified at the time as David L. Smith , soon admitted his responsibility in the case, and said he never imagined the virus would turn into such a massive electronic chaos.
Smith, a New Jersey native, was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison but was released after 20 months on good behavior and a $5,000 fine.
But…Who is Melissa?
After the chaos that erupted on the Internet, “Melissa” generated a lot of headlines and alerted the IT giants, so it was time to come up with tools to protect them and their customers from these attacks.
“ Melissa ,” now remembered as one of the most iconic Internet attacks in contemporary history, was a simple young exotic dancer from Florida who had become the love and obsession of David L Smith for years.
Smith later offered to help the FBI identify a Dutch man who created a similarly lethal virus that he named “in honor” of Russian tennis player Anna Kournikova.
Fun fact: Before “Melissa”, David L. Smith created 11 similar but less lethal versions of the malware with the same name but encrypted codes.
