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"Love bug" annoys but doesn’t cripple Washington

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CIOL Bureau
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Washington: The "Love Bug" virus infected the Pentagon and other

U.S. government computers on Thursday but appeared not to have created any

havoc, although it did cause some annoyance.

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"We have found absolutely no evidence that this has infected classified

computer programmes. I don't believe this has had a major impact" on

defence computers, Defence Department spokesman Ken Bacon told reporters.

The virus, which traveled by e-mail and could be passed on easily to others,

was found in a number of government agencies and in the offices of individual

members of Congress. The agencies were taking corrective actions.

Other areas reported no major effect on their daily routines.

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"It hasn't affected operations at the White House," said spokesman

Jake Siewert. "There have been some reports around the government about it.

The White House has taken some measures to secure its system ... Our cyber

security people are on top of it."

The virus, which the FBI said it was investigating, came in an e-mail that

says "ILOVEYOU" in the subject line and an attachment, which when

opened using Microsoft Outlook software sends the virus to the e-mail addresses

stored within the software, researchers said.

Once the virus infects the computer it can destroy certain files not only on

the user's own hard drive, but also other files on networks that the user is

connected to.

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With an estimated 1.5 million or more computers, the U.S. military was one of

the world's bigger users of electronic communication and one that could be hit

the hardest.

Pentagon spokeswoman Susan Hansen said the virus infected some parts of the

system and the department's Computer Emergency Response Team issued a warning to

system administrators to investigate the problem and set up protective

electronic walls against the virus.

"We are continuing to do our day-to-day work," she said, noting

that administrators were working to set up filtering systems to automatically

seek and destroy the virus' e-mail key message, and that individual users had

been warned not to open the e-mail message attachment.

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The Treasury Department issued an alert to all of its agencies, which

included the Internal Revenue Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and

Firearms and the Secret Service warning them that they could be targets.

All agencies were advised to immediately delete any e-mail messages that

contained the phrase in its address title and not to open it. A spokesman said

such e-mails were not widespread.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said, "We found it in time to

block ourselves off and then we got the virus fix, and now we are going through

and eradicating it."

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The Central Intelligence Agency said the impact of the virus was

"negligible" while the Securities and Exchange Commission and the

Commerce Department reported no problems.

But staffers in several congressional offices reported getting the bug and

the Food and Drug Administration said the virus hit "several"

computers.

"Basically we've shut down the e-mail as a preventive action," a

FDA official said.

(C) Reuters Limited 2000.

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