• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, August 22, 2003

With some Northeastern shops still reeling from the aftermath of the Blackout of 2003, some media agencies said their systems have been further strained by deluge of unsolicited bulk mail traffic created by waves of attacks from the Sobig.F computer virus.

The damage ranged from a mere nuisance at some agencies to a near melt-down in the e-mail systems of others.

"We're just about paralyzed here," said Tom Siebert, manager of corporate communications at Baltimore-based Carton Donofrio Partners. "Our IT guy is running around like a maniac; one of the account execs asked me if I'd gotten anything from outside the agency."

"It was just kind of a nuisance," said Anaka Kobzev, spokeswoman for Initiative Media. "Some people were hit not at all and other people were hit harder. Our New York office was hit the hardest of all our offices."

For many other shops, Sobig was an even smaller deal.

"We haven't been hit, knock on wood," said Robert Stank, IT chief at Carat North America. "We use Lotus messaging products and we have antivirus programs that protected us."

A MediaCom spokeswoman said her agency was also unaffected.

But coming on the heels of a devastating power outage, some agencies, as well as outside service providers, have been feeling the strain on their communications systems.

A spokesman for New York-based EarthQuake Media said the agency was "finally getting their systems fully up to speed and in running order from the Blackout" when Sobig began to hit. He added, however, "They were able to conduct business."

While a Nielsen Media Research spokeswoman reported "no problems," Stan Federman, president of Telmar said the media software planning firm did experience some glitches the first day of the attack but they did not impact any agency clients.

"That first day the first worm hit, we were affected internally. But we've put in all the patches and we've been fine. It was serious. It's not over," said Federman, adding that the event could lead to some changes in media industry communications systems.

"What we are all looking at is looking at whole new ways of handling e-mail to avoid these kinds of problems in the future," he said.