Definition: Melissa virus

A Word macro virus that was unleashed in the spring of 1999. It sent an email message with a list of pornographic websites to the first 50 names in the user's Microsoft Outlook address book. The subject field contained the phrase "An important message from" followed by the name of the user so that recipients thought it was coming from a known source. After the porn transmission, the virus attached itself to your system so that future Word documents you created and attached via email were sent to the first 50 addresses in your recipients' address book if they used Microsoft Outlook as the mail client.