Mail.com Defends 1,500 Corporations Against Over 10,000 'ILOVEYOU' Virus Attacks; Virus Spreads Faster and Threatens More Damage Than 'Melissa'-

Business Wire, May 5, 2000

Business & Technology Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 5, 2000

Mail.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: MAIL), the leading global provider of Internet messaging services for businesses, announced that MailZone, its fully outsourced, award-winning anti-virus service intercepted more than 10,000 incidents of the "ILOVEYOU" computer virus, at a rate of one every 15 seconds.

As more than 1,500 Mail.com corporate clients went about their routines today, MailZone intercepted virulent strains of the "ILOVEYOU" virus before it reached their networks while the IT/IS departments at unprotected organizations around the world scrambled to shut down their e-mail servers in self-defense.

MailZone, which currently screens for more than 40,000 known viruses and their variants, began intercepting "ILOVEYOU" just after 9:00 a.m. EDT on Thursday. Within two hours, MailZone was intercepting a mutated version of the "ILOVEYOU" virus, which is believed to have originated in the Philippines, and by 2:00 p.m. EDT, nearly 9,700 copies of the virus had been eliminated. It is believed that strains of "ILOVEYOU" are spreading faster than the notorious "Melissa" worm that last year caused an estimated $80 million in damages.

"ILOVEYOU" is such an innocuous name, that even people who are aware that the virus is out there, continue to open it to see what's inside," according to Aaron Fessler, president of Mail.com's Allegro division. "That's why MailZone is so effective - because it keeps messages containing the virus from ever reaching the corporate network. MailZone keeps human curiosity from killing the corporate network.

"In one day, we've tracked more activity from 'ILOVEYOU' than we did from all viruses in the first three months of the year," Fessler said. "Companies that didn't hear the wake-up call from 'Melissa' and institute vigorous safeguards for their e-mail systems were scrambling needlessly today."

"ILOVEYOU," also known as the "Love Bug," spreads as a Microsoft Visual Basic Script (VBS) attachment with "ILOVEYOU" in the subject header. The e-mail contains a message reading, "kindly check the attached LOVELETTER coming from me." The virus payload is carried in an attachment titled "LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.VBS."

Once the attachment is opened, the virus goes into action. It distributes copies of itself to everyone in the victim's Outlook Express address book and searches the computer for mIRC chat files. The virus then uses this data, if present, to insert a custom script in an attempt to infect other mIRC users.

Once activated, "ILOVEYOU" works by overwriting JPEG, MP3 and "html" files with its own code. "LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU" also attempts to download a "BUGFIX.EXE" file from four Internet sites, though the purpose of that file is not yet known.

MailZone protection for the more than 1,500 corporate clients using the service was immediate and universal. MailZone is an Internet-based, platform-independent anti-virus solution that screens inbound and outgoing messages while they are still on the Internet. MailZone acts as a first line of defense, ensuring infected e-mails do not reach their intended destinations, without the need for client-side software or hardware.

About Mail.com Business Messaging Services

Mail.com (NASDAQ: MAIL) Business Messaging Services is a leading global provider of outsourced messaging solutions for businesses. Our solution set includes hosted Microsoft Exchange, Novell GroupWise and Web/POP3-based e-mail and collaboration services; hosted e-mail firewall services such as virus scanning, spam blocking and content filtering; and a full range of Web-based, desktop and production Internet Fax solutions. Used by 8,500 corporations worldwide, Mail.com is the Company more enterprises turn to for outsourced messaging solutions. Information about Mail.com is available at http://www.mail.com.

About Mail.com

Founded in 1996, Mail.com Inc. is a one-stop resource for Internet messaging services, providing reliable feature-rich e-mail and Internet fax services to businesses, ISPs, Web sites and direct to consumers through its flagship Web site: http://www.mail.com. Mail.com has a technology infrastructure of IP network facilities in 20 key countries and currently serves more than 14 million e-mailboxes and 8,500 corporate customers worldwide.

This news release may contain statements of a forward-looking nature relating to the future events or the future financial results of Mail.com. Investors are cautioned that such statements are only predictions and that actual events or results may differ materially. In evaluating such statements, investors should specifically consider the various factors which could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those indicated from such forward-looking statements, including the matters set forth in Mail.com's reports and documents filed from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission.