Another well known virus is a virus that modern computers can never get anymore: the Melissa virus. It was a virus that behaved similarly to a worm virus, but was not self-sustaining like a worm. The Melissa virus relied on the Window’s email program Outlook in order to infect computers on a large scale.

This means that computers who use Outlook Express will never have to deal with this macro virus.

But if by chance you have an older and functional Windows computer, how the Melissa virus works is through a series of actions. Unlike worms, the Melissa virus only spreads through the program which means you have control of dealing with it or spreading it.

That being said, the Melissa virus is crafty and was originally targeting corporations. How it got spread was when people received an email from a supposed co-worker who sent them an “important document.” Once the individual clicked on the attachment, the virus was downloaded to the computer, read through the top 50 people in their address book and sent the exact same email to them.

The idea with this virus is that sending a mass email through multiple computers may be enough to crash businesses servers and costing them millions of dollars. And that was definitely the case as the FBI determined that David L. Smith caused damages worth up to $80 million.

But even though the Melissa virus is a virus of the past, many viruses can behave like this too. While a lot of junk gets sent to our spam email boxes, there can be emails that we get that seem ordinary to us but are posing as a virus. As such, it’s important for us to pause and check our emails.

Are we expecting an email from someone? Does it contain an odd titled attachment? Or how about a link that you’re uncertain of?

We can take preventative measures from these viruses spreading by taking a few seconds to screen our emails.