Melissa virus
E701338
The Melissa virus was a notorious mass-mailing macro virus from 1999 that spread via infected Microsoft Word documents and caused widespread disruption to email systems worldwide.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Melissa virus canonical | 1 |
| W97M.Melissa | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T7895113 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Melissa virus Context triple: [ILOVEYOU worm, relatedTo, Melissa virus]
-
A.
ILOVEYOU worm
The ILOVEYOU worm was a notorious early-2000s email-borne computer worm that rapidly spread worldwide, causing massive damage by overwriting files and exploiting users’ trust with a deceptive love-letter subject line.
-
B.
John Cunningham virus
John Cunningham virus is a human polyomavirus that typically remains latent but can cause the severe demyelinating brain disease progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy in immunocompromised individuals.
-
C.
The Virus
"The Virus" is a 1982 political thriller novel by British author Stanley Johnson that imagines a deadly global pandemic and the governmental response to it.
-
D.
Vircava
Vircava is a river in Latvia that serves as one of the tributaries feeding into the larger Lielupe River system.
-
E.
Fluzão
Fluzão is a popular nickname for Fluminense Football Club, one of Brazil’s traditional Rio de Janeiro–based football teams.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Melissa virus Target entity description: The Melissa virus was a notorious mass-mailing macro virus from 1999 that spread via infected Microsoft Word documents and caused widespread disruption to email systems worldwide.
-
A.
ILOVEYOU worm
The ILOVEYOU worm was a notorious early-2000s email-borne computer worm that rapidly spread worldwide, causing massive damage by overwriting files and exploiting users’ trust with a deceptive love-letter subject line.
-
B.
John Cunningham virus
John Cunningham virus is a human polyomavirus that typically remains latent but can cause the severe demyelinating brain disease progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy in immunocompromised individuals.
-
C.
The Virus
"The Virus" is a 1982 political thriller novel by British author Stanley Johnson that imagines a deadly global pandemic and the governmental response to it.
-
D.
Vircava
Vircava is a river in Latvia that serves as one of the tributaries feeding into the larger Lielupe River system.
-
E.
Fluzão
Fluzão is a popular nickname for Fluminense Football Club, one of Brazil’s traditional Rio de Janeiro–based football teams.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
computer virus
ⓘ
macro virus ⓘ mass-mailing email worm ⓘ |
| alsoKnownAs |
Melissa.A
ⓘ
W97M.Melissa ⓘ
linked to:
Melissa virus
|
| arrestDateOfCreator | April 1999 ⓘ |
| category |
1999 in computing
ⓘ
email worms ⓘ macro viruses ⓘ malware incidents in the United States ⓘ |
| creator | David L. Smith ⓘ |
| effect |
disruption of corporate networks
ⓘ
email system slowdowns ⓘ overloaded email servers ⓘ spread of infected Word documents ⓘ |
| emailBodyText | Here is that document you asked for ... don't show anyone else ;-) ⓘ |
| emailsSentPerInfection | up to 50 recipients ⓘ |
| emailSubjectLine | Important Message From [username] ⓘ |
| estimatedDamageCost |
between 80 million and 385 million US dollars
ⓘ
tens of millions of US dollars ⓘ |
| fileExtensionTargeted | .doc ⓘ |
| firstDiscovered |
1999
ⓘ
March 1999 ⓘ |
| geographicScope | worldwide ⓘ |
| inspired |
greater awareness of macro security in office software
ⓘ
increased security measures for email attachments ⓘ |
| legalConsequenceForCreator |
arrest of David L. Smith
ⓘ
federal prosecution in the United States ⓘ prison sentence for David L. Smith ⓘ |
| malwareType | macro virus ⓘ |
| namedAfter | a stripper named Melissa ⓘ |
| notableCharacteristic |
caused denial-of-service–like conditions on mail servers
ⓘ
did not directly destroy data ⓘ |
| notableFor |
being one of the first widely publicized email viruses
ⓘ
demonstrating the risk of macro viruses in office documents ⓘ |
| payloadTrigger | opening an infected Word document ⓘ |
| primaryInfectionVector |
email attachments
ⓘ
infected Microsoft Word documents ⓘ |
| propagationMethod |
mass-mailing via email
ⓘ
sending itself to contacts in Outlook address book ⓘ |
| spreadMechanism | infecting Word document macros ⓘ |
| targetApplication |
Microsoft Outlook
ⓘ
linked to:
Outlook
Microsoft Word 2000 ⓘ Microsoft Word 97 ⓘ |
| targetPlatform |
Microsoft Windows
ⓘ
linked to:
Windows
|
| usesTechnology |
Microsoft Outlook
ⓘ
linked to:
Outlook
Microsoft Word ⓘ
linked to:
Word
|
| writtenIn |
Microsoft Word macro language
ⓘ
linked to:
VBA
|
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Melissa virus Description of subject: The Melissa virus was a notorious mass-mailing macro virus from 1999 that spread via infected Microsoft Word documents and caused widespread disruption to email systems worldwide.
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
linked to: Melissa virus