KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The Michelangelo virus was a computer virus that was transmitted by a floppy disk onto the computer hard drives. It was due to be released on March 6, which was Michelangelo, the painter's, birthday, hence the name. And it was widely feared in the business community because of the damage it may incur on business computers and their systems. (</s>BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, MARCH 6, 1992) UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): All across the country, all around the world, the word spread like the flu, Friday, of damage from the Michelangelo computer virus. In Kennesaw, Georgia, outside Atlanta, the secretary of the New Salem Baptist Church fired up her computer to find all the data gone.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The last thing I've ever worried about was a virus on a computer.</s>UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT: In Santa Clara, California, the anti-virus software maker Macafee Associates has been fielding calls about Michelangelo for weeks. Friday morning, the calls started coming in about 4:00 a.m. from as far away as Egypt.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is no answer to these people. You know, we have to sympathize with them. You've lost your data. We can't recover that for you. The best we can do is get your computer working again. You then have to worry about how to getting your data back.</s>UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT: Reports of damage were sporadic. Many organizations and companies scanned their computers ahead of the March 6 trigger date and eliminated the virus before it hit.</s>PILGRIM: There were other scattered reports of damage by the Michelangelo virus, but the United States escaped largely unscathed.
CNN 20: Michelangelo Virus, March 6, 1992