"Love Bug" infects US defence computers

WASHINGTON: The international "Love Bug" virus contaminated at

least four classified U.S. military computer systems but the problems were

quickly isolated and the impact was minimal, the Defence Department said on

Friday.

Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon released a statement which did not directly

identify the systems in three defence agencies. But U.S. officials, who asked

not to be identified, told Reuters at least one of them belonged to the

super-secret National Security Agency.

Among NSA's tasks is to monitor millions of pieces of intelligence

information gathered from around the world by U.S. spy satellites in space.

Bacon said the electronic bug, which emerged Thursday and quickly infected

millions of computers worldwide, had "contaminated a classified internal

e-mail system" early on Thursday. He said the agency using the system

reported that less than one percent of the network was contaminated and it was

quickly isolated and cleaned by technicians.

He added that the Joint Task Force on Computer Network Defence reported on

Friday that two other classified e-mail systems and a fourth classified system

had also been infected by the "Love Bug."

"Despite these episodes, the task force says it has received no reports

that the virus had an impact on military operations," the statement said.

"Because of protections built into classified computer systems, the

impact of the virus was minimal" and had no impact on military operations,

Bacon said, adding that the task force was investigating how the virus entered

the classified systems.

(C) Reuters Limited 2000.