`MELISSA' VIRUS WREAKS HAVOC.

Byline: Daily News staff and wire reports

E-mail systems at hundreds of companies around the country were swamped Monday by a nefarious virus called ``Melissa'' that worked its way into computers disguised as an ``important message'' from a friend.

Experts at the Carnegie Mellon University's Computer Emergency Response Team estimated that the virus caused more than 100,000 personal computers to spew out dozens of infected e-mail messages in a vicious cascade.

That estimate was based only on firsthand reports, prompting a team leader, Jeff Carpenter, to suggest that the actual infection rate was much higher.

``We believe this is only the tip of the iceberg,'' Carpenter said from his office at the Pittsburgh-based university.

Corporate computer managers first noticed the virus late Friday, but it began spreading rapidly Monday.

Local companies appear to have avoided the worst of the virus. Art Bentley, a spokesman for defense contractor Litton Industries Inc. of Woodland Hills, said the firm was aware of Melissa and had taken preventive measures against it, including telling employees not to open suspect e-mails.

Camarillo-based Vitesse Semiconductor, Thousand Oaks-based WellPoint Health Networks and Southern California Edison, based in Rosemead, all said they escaped the virus because their e-mail systems did not rely on Outlook or Outlook Express, which Melissa targeted. ``It was not the disaster it's been for some companies,'' said Edison spokesman Tom Boyd. ``Nothing we can't handle.''

Nationally, organizations affected include the chemical company DuPont in Wilmington, Del.; the aerospace company Lockheed Martin in Bethesda, Md.; electronics products maker Honeywell Inc. in Minneapolis; the North Dakota state Capitol; The Associated Press Broadcast Services in Washington, D.C. and Compaq Computer Corp. in Houston.

Elaine Hinsdale, spokeswoman for Lockheed Martin, said e-mail traffic increased dramatically Friday and the network became overloaded. ``It's been a significant nuisance for us,'' she said.

According to the university's computer team, the Melissa virus comes in the form of an e-mail usually containing the subject line ``Important Message.'' The virus breaks into the address book of a computer user's e-mail program and makes the incoming e-mail look like it is from a friend or colleague.

The body of the e-mail message says ``Here is that document you asked for . . . don't show it to anyone else ;-).''

Attached to the message is a document file in the popular Microsoft Word processing program. Once the user opens that file, the virus again digs into the address book, finds the first 50 addresses and sends the same infected documents out into cyberspace.