How Viruses Get Named

We try to group by family," Elnitiarto said. However, "thats getting harder and harder with a lot of these new viruses coming out," because many viruses are hybrids that mix the reproductive mechanism of one virus with the payload of another, for example. During such moments of confusion, the researchers categorize them by infection method. For example, a recent variation of Melissa called "Madcow" has been grouped with an earlier type of virus, the "Class" series, Elnitiarto said. The Class virus, which Elnitiarto named after the fact that it tries to infect a module of a Word document called "Class," now has more than 120 variations, he said. That brings up another problem: running out of names.
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