Hawai'i fends off effects of latest computer virus

By Sean Hao
Advertiser Staff Writer

Several large Hawai'i businesses and institutions said they were able to contain damage from the "Mydoom" computer virus by applying lessons learned from its predecessor, the "Sobig" virus.

Sobig, which was the fastest-growing virus when it attacked computers worldwide in August, shut down e-mail at Hawai'i Pacific University and disrupted mail at other sites in the state.

Since August, HPU has started monitoring security Web sites and keeping operating system and anti-virus software updated, said Justin Itoh, HPU's chief information officer.

"The users don't see any difference at all, which is a big change from the other one," Itoh said. "This time, we already knew about it Monday of last week, so we were well ahead of the game."

Kiman Wong, general manager for e-mail services at Oceanic Time Warner Cable, likened the level of Mydoom virus activity to the Sobig virus, but said Oceanic blocked the virus from being sent to Road Runner e-mail users.

"This one is attacking pretty hard," Wong said. But, "I think, in general, more people were prepared for it because they experienced the results of not being prepared" when the Sobig virus was released.

At the University of Hawai'i, the virus disrupted some e-mail Monday.

"We're hopefully on the way back to normal service," said David Lassner, UH chief information officer.

As of yesterday UH had intercepted about 234,000 e-mails infected with the Mydoom virus. That compared to about 700,000 infected e-mails intercepted when Sobig was released.

At healthcare insurer HMSA, the virus temporarily shut down e-mail Monday. E-mail service was halted for about a day to prevent the virus from spreading, said Gordon Hilton, chief information officer at HMSA.

When launched on computers running Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating systems, Mydoom's attached file can send out 100 infected e-mail messages in 30 seconds to e-mail addresses stored in the computer's address book and other documents. The program also appears to open a backdoor so hackers can take over the computer later.

Microsoft has a patch for Outlook e-mail software that warns users before they open the infected attachments or prevents them from opening the files. Anti-virus software also stops the infection.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Reach Sean Hao at 525-8093 or shao@honoluluadvertiser.com.