With all of the folderall by the TV networks and news channels, and the reports of anticipated doom for many computers, I expect- ed to wake up this morning and learn that this paper didn't get printed, my train from the suburbs was rerouted to Calcutta and Manhattan's traffic lights were out of order. No such luck. America is up and running.
That doesn't mean that no one got struck by computer influenza, though. There are hundreds of reports of widespread damage to microcomputers everywhere.
The Bala Cynwyd, PA medical center lost several weeks of records. Credit Card International was struck in Madrid, Spain and can't figure out which customers bought what from whom. A few schools in England don't know who their students are, and a University in upstate New York won't be holding computer classes for a while.
William Murray of the Institute for Public Computing Confidence in Washington, D.C., downplayed the incident. "We have had re- ports of several small outbreaks, but we have not heard of any particularly devastating incidents. It seems that only a few isolated sites were affected."
On the other hand, Bethan Fenster from Virus Stoppers in McLean, Virginia, maintains that the virus damage was much more wide- spread. She says the outbreaks are worse than reported in the press. "I personally know of several Fortune 100 companies that will be spending the next several weeks putting their systems back in order. Some financial institutions have been nearly shut down because their computers are inoperable. It's the worst (computer) virus outbreak I've ever seen."
Very few companies would confirm that they had been affected by the Columbus Day Virus. "They won't talk to you," Ms. Fenster said. "If a major company announced publicly that their comput- ers were down due to criminal activity, there would be a certain loss of confidence in that company. I understand that they feel a fiduciary responsibility to their stockholders to minimize the effects of this."
Despite Ms. Fenster's position, Forsythe Insurance, NorthEast Airlines, Brocker Financial and the Internal Revenue Service all admitted that they have had a 'major' disruption in their comput- er services and expect to take two to six weeks to repair the damage. Nonetheless, several of those companies hit, feel lucky.
"We only lost about a thousand machines," said Ashley Marie, senior network manager at Edison Power. "Considering that we have no means of protecting our computers at all, we could have been totally put out of business." She said that despite the cost to repair the systems, her management feels no need to add security or protective measures in the future. "They believe that this was a quirk, a one time deal. They're wrong," Ms. Marie said.
Many small companies that said they have almost been put out of business because they were struck by the Columbus Day Virus. "Simply not true," commented Christopher Angel of the Anti-Virus Brigade, a vigilante group who professes to have access to pri- vate information on computer viruses. "Of all of the reports of downed computers yesterday, less than 10% are from the Data Crime. Anyone who had any sort of trouble is blaming it on the virus rather than more common causes like hardware malfunction and operator error. It is a lot more glamorous to admit being hit by the virus that has created near hysteria over the last month."
Whatever the truth, it seems to be well hidden under the guise of politics. There is mounting evidence and concern that computer viruses and computer hackers are endangering the contents of our computers. While the effects of the Columbus Day Virus may have been mitigated by advance warnings and precautionary measures, and the actual number of infection sites very limited, computer professionals are paying increasing attention to the problem.