By the time you read this, the Microsoft Word virus called Melissa will be one more historic footnote of Internet chaos (let’s hope). As a computer virus, it has received more media attention than the famed Michelangelo virus of years past. As a problem, it will probably end up costing your company thousands of dollars in wasted resources. But what does the Melissa virus have to do with your AS/400? If you’re using your AS/400 as an email server, everything! Infected Microsoft Word documents attached to email sent to your AS/400 accounts make your site an unwilling accomplice to the proliferation of this costly prank. Some legal sources insist there is liability for any email server site that ignores or fails to screen viruses from its internally controlled email servers. No doubt there will be lawsuits. Who is to blame? I think Microsoft is the ultimate culprit. Here’s why.

Microsoft Word viruses are unique because the company has chosen to embed so much access to its operating system through each of its Office products. For example, Microsoft Word makes hooks available to nearly every conceivable operating system function. These functions can be activated through the Visual Basic (VB) macro language extension. This is how the Melissa virus breeds: Opening an infected Word document starts a macro that subsequently performs an ActiveDocument.SendMail function. Because the Microsoft Outlook client also uses the same VB macro extension, the initial Melissa macro can easily access email addresses in a user’s address book and send the infected document to other unsuspecting recipients.

What’s amazing is the simplicity of the entire process: Anyone with a little bit of VB knowledge can create such a virus. In other words, the exponential spread of Melissa is not the result of a twisted genius but of someone with a modicum of expertise and too much time on his hands. Unfortunately, the quick apprehension of the author of the virus didn’t provide much relief to the thousands of Microsoft customers whose livelihoods were impacted by Melissa. What is even more frightening is that Microsoft continues to market and ship embedded operating system functions in its products without giving much thought about how these functions can undermine the information system infrastructure. And we in IT continue to buy these products!

But why are these embedded functions even present? If you query average users of Microsoft Word or Outlook, you’re likely to discover that very few of them have ever used the macro function. Most users don’t even know it exists. In other words, Microsoft has created the premier weapon for IT terrorism: something akin to a Unabomber toolkit, capable of invading everyone’s privacy, derailing an IT infrastructure, and degrading the entire Internet. Go Microsoft!

Now, imagine if IBM made the same careless controls available to its users of OS/400. Imagine a macro language for OS/400 that allowed uncontrolled access with embedded agents inside a simple memorandum typed by a disgruntled employee. How would your company officials react to such a scenario? No doubt your selection of the AS/400 would be scrutinized critically. No doubt your company’s complaints would be heard all the way up to the corridors of IBM, and an emergency PTF would be sent to your organization to remedy the situation.

By comparison, Microsoft’s response to the current Melissa disaster is quite lame. According to Microsoft, “The macro functionality of Microsoft Office applications provides a programming environment that allows customers and developers to extend the functionality of Office. However, malicious hackers have recently taken advantage of this macro functionality to create these harmful viruses.” It blames “malicious hackers” and then posts a tepid warning on its Web site, telling the world that it is “proactively trying to prevent the spread of Melissa” by working with other manufacturers of antivirus software.

How sad that the acceptable threshold for PC-related security is considerably lower than our threshold for AS/400 security. How unfortunate that we’ve mistaken “ease of abuse” for “ease of use.” Isn’t it about time that we demanded the same level of secure service from our PC products that our management requires of our critical IS systems? Isn’t it time that software companies, which provide us with critical business services, be held to the same levels of accountability, usability, and safety that are mandated for other manufacturers of goods and services?

No corporation wants to be reminded of its fallibility. How embarrassing to let one’s customers be brought to their knees by some anonymous malcontent using a word processor and a free email client. Yet that’s exactly what has happened. Worse still, by merely blaming the creator of the virus, Microsoft has ignored the genesis of the problem. And by failing to take real action to enable security with its products, it has shown its own immaturity to the corporations with which it does business.