Melissa Virus, also known as “Mail issa”. Founded on March 26, 1999 and was created by David L Smith named after an exotic dancer in Florida. Melissa shut down Internet mail system that got clogged with infected e-mails propagating from the virus. Melissa was not originally designed for harm, but it overflowed servers and caused unplanned problems.
It was one of the first distributed in the Usenet discussion group alt.sex. The virus was inside a file called “list.DOC” titled “Here is that document you asked for, don’t show it to anybody else”, which contained passwords that allow access into several pornographic websites.
It act similarly with the sowar worm only it access automatically one pornographic site “redtube.com” . The virus’ effect was largely enough to destroy registries of some e-mailing programs. The US Federal Government became highly interested in Smith’s work after the virus “wreaked havoc on government and private sector networks”. Smith was subsequently taken to court and after a lengthy trial he received a 20 month jail sentence and $5,000 fine.
The court also banned him from accessing computer network without court authorization. The Melissa virus caught the attention of the public after its devastating effect.
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