RIAA WEBSITE ATTACKED BY VIRUS

That computer virus that probably took out a couple of your co-worker’s computers in late February has wreaked havoc on one of its intended targets, the Recording Industry Association of America’s site, RIAA.com.

The lobby group’s site has been inaccessible for several days, possibly the victim of a computer virus specifically targeting the site or possibly down as a precautionary measure. The site has been down since Wednesday and remained offline as of this morning.

RIAA.com was among the targets named in the "MyDoom.F" virus, which was spotted by last month. The virus was programmed to activate between the 17th and 22nd of any month. Upon activation, the virus performs what’s called a denial-of-service attack: machines infected with the virus continually send bogus web traffic requests to the RIAA site, overwhelming it.

RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy said: “We are working on getting it back online.”

The RIAA’s sites have been attacked by those unhappy with the group’s anti-file-swapping position and tactics.