Preventative Medicine to Control the Love Bug
By following a couple of common sense practices, you can make your computer far safer from virus attacks. One such practice involves using message filters, so that you can set your system to automatically delete messages that meet a certain criteria.
First, start by checking popular anti-virus software sites like Symantec's Anti-Virus Research Center (which provides a searchable encyclopedia of viruses) for the characteristics of a particular virus - you will need that information later. For instance, Symantec and another popular Anti-Virus software company McAfee have identified these characteristics for VBS.Loveletter.A - the initial version of the "Love Bug:"
- The Subject line of the received email says "ILOVEYOU."
- The Message Body says "kindly check the attached LOVELETTER coming from me."
- The attachment is called "LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs"
Then, using these virus characteristics, here's how to configure Outlook Express to protect yourself from the VBS.Loveletter.A worm, the initial incarnation of the Love Bug virus:
- In Outlook Express, go to the [Tools] menu, point at [Message Rules] and click on [Mail].
- In the "Select conditions of your rule" field, click on the box next to "Where the Subject line contains specific words" to set that as your first condition.
- In the "Rule Description" field, click on [contains specific words] (which is blue and underlined). In the window that opens, type the VBS.Loveletter.A subject line, "ILOVEYOU."
- Then, click on the check box next to "Where the message body contains specific words."
- In the "Rule Description" field, click on [contains specific words]. In the window that opens, type the VBS.Loveletter.A body text, "kindly check the attached LOVELETTER coming from me."
- You've just set the conditions for your filter. Now, in the "Select Actions for your rule" field, click on the box next to "Delete It." This completes your rule definition, as you can see in the "Rule Description" Field.
- In the "Name of Your Rule," type a name (like LoveBug Killer or Die LoveBug Die) for the rule you've just created, then push the [OK] button. Now, whenever a message tries to come into your inbox that fits these criteria, it will automatically be sent to your Deleted Items Folder. To remove it from your system permanently from there, right-click on the folder and choose [Empty 'Deleted Items' Folder].
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