One of the most notorious computer viruses in internet history was the ILOVEYOU worm. It initially struck in the early 2000s, causing billions in damage. It left a massive impact on society at large that still remains today. The ILOVEYOU virus tends to be the virus that pops into many people’s minds first when somebody asks them for an example of a computer virus. It utilizes some of the oldest tricks in the book, and some of the simplest, inspiring many copycats and spinoffs used today.
A victim of ILOVEYOU will receive an email from typically someone they know, an infected individual. The title of the email would be ILOVEYOU and the attachment appears as LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT. The .txt file extension was in fact a decoy, as the edition of Windows at the time did not display the extensions by default. It was actually a Visual Basic script file (.vbs) that when opened, orders the computer to execute many different tasks such as randomly deleting files and stealing information such as passwords. Images, documents, and other types of files were completely deleted from the computer. The virus would then open your email account and send itself to every person in your contacts list in the same fashion mentioned before. That is how the virus spread so fast and so efficiently. It went from one person’s contacts to the contacts’ contacts to all those contacts’ contacts, and so forth. It infected ten million windows computers during the initial outbreak. Considering how personal computers weren’t as common back then, those numbers are incredible.
The author of the virus, Onel de Guzman from Manila, Philippines, claims that he initially created the virus to steal internet access passwords to use the internet without paying. He sent the virus to people in Pinoy chatrooms and didn’t expect it to spread as wide as it did. He stated that he regretted producing the virus and didn’t know that it would cause massive worldwide damage. Guzman was arrested after being identified as the creator of the virus, but as there were no laws in place for cyber crimes, he was freed without charge.
The ILOVEYOU virus prompted mass media coverage of the threat and inspired many to take cyber security seriously. Nowadays, internet users are reminded not to open sketchy files, to be careful with emails, and to always make sure they know who and why someone is sending them something. Even so, email attacks are one of the most common ways to steal data and inconvenience people online. In May of 2020, the ILOVEYOU virus resurfaced and swiftly infected 5 million modern Windows computers! As cybersecurity experts in the past have said, it is imperative to STOP before you open an email or its attachment. Who sent it to you, and why did they do it? Is anything about the email sketchy? Are they asking you to do something weird? Be careful with what’s sent to you to avoid being victimized the same way.
Resources VV
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/01/tech/iloveyou-virus-computer-security-intl-hnk/index.html