“I can imagine… the media the most provocative of these games, which is Leisure Suit Larry,” says Morrissette. Where Larry was present on an infected system, its salaciousness probably made it a sexier angle than any other pirated software with which it shared hard drive space. Indeed, contemporaneous reports of Jerusalem wreaking havoc at British Rail, the Royal National Institute for the Blind, the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, the University of Oklahoma, IBM’s Tampa office, thousands of computers in China, the Chulalongkorn University and two banks in Thailand, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Israeli Defence Force don’t mention Larry at all.
In fact, I can’t recall many outbreaks spread in that way.”
“It was a fairly prevalent myth that viruses spread via pirated commercial software.
“I'd say overstated,” says virus and information security specialist Robert Slade. Sierra was quick to publicize reports of Larry’s role in the 1988-99 spread of Jerusalem, but there’s not really any evidence that it was a major factor.
