Last summer a terrible thing happened at Connectzone.com. A truly vicious horrible thing happened. A catastrophic, mind bending, corporate wide devastating event. An employee opened an email. Opening an email shouldn’t be dangerous…..

It made sense-it was from UPS. We have daily pickup and delivery from UPS-they email us all the time so why not open it. Guess what? It wasn’t from UPS, that email came from the devil, not “a devil” but from “THE DEVIL”. Yes, it was from Lucifer also known as Satan, Angel of the bottomless pit, Antichrist and The Prince of Darkness. Here is what the attachment in that email really was: http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/ups.asp

Of course once you open the email you gasp and realize you just shot your computer in the head and are relieved that you only have one casualty and no collateral damage. So you remove your thumb drive that has all the truly critical company information relieved you had it stored on a portable device (remember the thumb drive because it is going to come up later). Whew, at least you dodged that bullet. So you put the computer in the ambulance and take it to the computer hospital at Rain Networks. Side note-we work with Rain Networks all the time and they really ROCK! You can find them at www.rainnetworks.com if you need them. Back to my story. After pacing in the waiting room at the computer hospital the computer doctor comes out and tells you your computer is in critical condition and they will do everything within their power to save it. Then the computer doctor says those dreaded words “we will do our best, but it’s always best to be prepared for the worst and have your affairs in order-you back up daily right?” You feel your eyes welling up with tears and a tinge of nausea, your knees are kind of weak on the way out to your car and remind yourself you shouldn’t drive when you are so dizzy and close to fainting. And then you think to yourself “get a grip, it’s a computer, it isn’t like your child needs chemotherapy-pull yourself together”.

So on your merry way you go back to the office with a better perspective on what just happened. Upon arrival you set up another computer for yourself and insert the thumb drive with your critical information and resume work. A little while later all the other employees start having weird computer problems. You happen to walk past your router and by golly it’s flashing wildly with activity, all the while chuckling to yourself how good business must be, for your employees to be so busy using their computers.

Remember the thumb drive from earlier in this story? Well guess what? It has the Ebola virus from the email on it and has now infected your entire network and even the World Health Organization can’t stop the outbreak going on in your network. The reason your employees are having problems is the virus. The reason your router is flashing is because you are spamming everyone in your networks known universe, customers, vendors, contacts and personal friends. Of course spamming your universe doesn’t really matter, until you want to communicate with someone in the universe and they have all black listed your IP address……….

After several trips to the computer hospital, with several computers, several times we successfully eradicated that virus. Thanks mostly to the Bug Whisperers at Rain Networks. God Bless them and the selfless work they do. Even when the whole thing is said and done we still had to get a new IP address to communicate with our customers and vendors.

So I want to know who makes viruses? I mean I kind of can understand stealing-you want something someone else has. I don’t endorse it, but I get it-greed is part of human nature. With some stretching I can understand the mindset of an arsonist because they return to see the devastation they caused and get some weird satisfaction from witnessing it. But computer viruses? Where’s the juice in that?

Is there just someone in a basement in Podunk Nowhere who is maladjusted and lonely? They don’t even know if their virus succeeded unless it makes CNN or Snopes. Why is the purpose to destroy instead of create? I guess that is Batman’s age old question “why can’t they use their forces for good”.

Connectzone sell Cisco Cables, PDU, Data Cabinets, 19" rack shelfs, Fiber Optics