Remember the old Melissa virus from Word 97? It was one of the first truly widespread macro viruses, appearing for the first time in March 1999. It did the usual stuff you expect from a mass-mailing worm, with one mildly amusing twist:
The virus activates if it is executed when the minutes of the hour match the day of the month; for example, 18:27 on the 27th day of a month. At this time the virus will insert the following phrase into the current open document in Word: “Twenty-two points, plus triple-word-score, plus fifty points for using all my letters. Game’s over. I’m outta here”. This text, as well as the alias name of the author of the virus, “Kwyjibo”, are all references to the popular cartoon TV series called “The Simpsons”.
In the course of updating the chapter of Windows Security Inside Out that covers viruses and other hostile software, I ran across this reference and decided to Google that particular snippet of text. Of course, I found plenty of references to the Melissa virus. But I also found lots of Word documents and PDF files that were inadvertently Simpson-ized by the virus and then posted to the Web, where they remain as a sort of memorial to this long-vanquished bit of hostile code.
Or at least I thought it was long-dead. Imagine my surprise to find this post on a Macintosh-oriented discussion board, dated December 28, 2004.
This is strange, some times the following shows up for no apparent reason:
“Twenty-two points, plus triple-word-score, plus fifty points for using all my letters. Game’s over. I’m outta here.”
I could be writing or saving and then poof! there it is…
Is this a programmers joke of some sort? I have to be careful not to send this off to a client embedded in a doc. This happens in the OSX version as well as earlier ones.
Any ideas? Any one else see this b4?
A little more Googling revealed that this particular virus was WM97/Melissa-X:
Melissa-X is an infected Microsoft Office 2001 file (Office 2000 for Macintosh). It appears that this virus variant came about when a Macintosh user who had a file infected with WM97/Melissa-X, saved it using Office 2001. The file (ANNIV.DOC) was then sent to a colleague running Microsoft Office 97 or 2000. When the file was opened the viral macro code ran (even though the file format was still Office 2001), and the mass-mailing part of the virus code executed.
[…]
The mass-mailing payload of Melissa-X does not work on Macintosh computers, although the virus can still replicate.
Apparently this particular strain appeared in early 2001. Viruses on a Mac. Who knew? For what it’s worth, the architectural changes in Office 2000 (Windows) and later versions completely eliminated macro viruses. And that poor Mac Melissa victim needs to get some security updates, too!
Ed Bott 