Up to 5 Million PCs at Risk From the Michelangelo Virus on March 6, 1992. Of AT&T's 250,000, It Hit Two

The fine print

The quote is McAfee's, as printed by the Deseret News on March 3, 1992, in a story saying the virus 'lies dormant in an estimated 5 million IBM-compatible personal computers worldwide and is poised to strike on Friday, the artist's birthdate.' The Los Angeles Times (March 4) said the virus 'by some estimates has infected about 5 million personal computers.' The American Journalism Review's look-back says it was McAfee 'who told many reporters that as many as 5 million computers were at risk', and that Reuters and the AP sent the figure around the world; AP deputy business editor Rick Gladstone told AJR: 'Our big oversight was to quote McAfee's 5 million figure in the beginning of the coverage.' Hedges at the time: 'could cause lots of damage', 'as many as'. The virus was real and did wipe some disks; the claim judged here is the scale. Outcome: The Washington Post (March 7): 'The 517th birthday of Michelangelo came and went yesterday and the computer world survived.' Per the AP report quoted by Vice, 'The day of techno-doom turned out to be a dud': Boston University reported three cases among 2,000 campus computers, and AT&T two among its 250,000 business computers worldwide. AJR says AP and USA Today tracking afterwards found only a few thousand afflicted computers worldwide.