I love you is a virus included in the Guinness Book of Records with the status of the most destructive malicious code in the world.
Epidemic
On May 4, 2000, a new virus was released into the network, quickly sweeping over 3 million computers. The speed of the spread of "love fever" broke all records thanks to a fan mailing to users' address books.
Thanks to the intriguing title of the letter containing the virus, most computer owners could not restrain the temptation to open it, which led to such a disaster.
I love you (the virus) was released in the Philippines, so Asia was the first to suffer from its destructive effects, followed by Europe and Russia. Messages about infections of entire companies came in huge numbers, and after 3 days the number of damaged computers was estimated at more than 2 million copies.
Spread
The program code was distributed via electronic messages through attachments in a letter with a tempting headline I love you.
This virus comes from the Philippines, and initially its creation was attributed to a certain Reonel Ramones. However, during a search in the house of the young man, not a single computer was found. Then, in the program code of the virus, the FSB deciphered the “signatures” of other students at a computer school in Manila, but this time the allegations were not confirmed.
Only a few months later the true creator was found - Onel de Guzmán. But ... the laws of the Philippines did not punish computer hooliganism, so all the requirements to start the proceedings were ignored at that time.
I love you - a virus that copies itself and sends it after the user executes the attached file to the email addresses found in the victim’s contacts.
How does the virus work?
After the first launch, the "love message" copies itself to the system directories and the OS registry, after which it scans the computer for multimedia files. Having found the desired, the virus changes the data extension, sometimes making them invisible to the user. After that, I love you starts a fan mailing to recipients and downloads a password theft program that sends information to the code creator’s email.
However, this is how the love letter 2000 computer virus works. Since then, the code has undergone strong modifications, and if earlier its effect was harmful only to multimedia files, then over time everything changed. New versions of the "love message" cause the computer to crash by deleting and modifying the INI and BAT system files responsible for loading the machine.
About Precautions
Some versions of the virus are still surfing the Internet, but there are fewer and fewer, since Kaspersky Lab has long developed a program capable of recognizing any modification of a "love message." The software checks the script before execution, and if it finds signs of malicious code in it, it prevents its launch.
However, the already existing I love you virus (the creator of this muck - Onel de Guzmán) cannot be stopped - it can only be deleted by losing the affected files. To avoid such consequences (especially for users who do not consider it necessary to protect their PC), it is better not to download any suspicious attachments, even if they came with a letter from a friend. It’s worth once again checking with a friend what is in them and making sure that the e-mail was really sent by a person, and not by a malicious program.
The fate of de Guzmán
In general, the accusation fell on Onel because of his own stupidity: when he was still a student, he tried to imagine a virus that steals user passwords and sends them by e-mail to other people as a graduation paper. The young man believed that this would benefit users and reduce their costs on the Web.
The teaching staff, of course, did not approve of this step, but de Guzmain did not abandon the development of the program. As mentioned earlier, the prosecution could not be blamed for the former student - the imperfect legislation of the Philippines and the lack of evidence played in his favor. The young man himself answered questions about the virus very ambiguously. According to his testimony, it turned out that the script was not written by him, but it was he who released the program to the world.
However, in 2010 another version appeared. According to her, I love you is a virus written by de Guzmán’s classmate. He was in love with Onel's girl, and in order to take revenge, he created a malicious script, including student development in it. Then he hacked the mailbox of his lover and sent Onel a letter with the virus. Thus, it turns out that de Guzmain's guilt can only be considered indirect, since he became the distributor of the epidemic as a victim, not a creator.