Are you familiar with the Love Bug Virus?
By sophiaraine
@sophiaraine (1113)
Philippines
May 11, 2010 10:21am CST
This virus became very popular for it caused millions of dollars in damages worldwide in 2000. It was created by my fellow Filipinos Roemel Ramones and Onel de Guzman. The FBI and NBI (local criminal investigation in the Philippines) teamed up to find the said suspects. Since there were no laws in the Philippines against writing malware at the time, both Ramones and de Guzman were released.
ILOVEYOU or LOVELETTER, better known as the Love Bug Virus is a computer worm that sucessfully attacked tens of millions of windows users in 2000. when it was sent as an email attachment with the text ILOVEYOU in the subject line. The worm arrived in email inboxes on and after May 4, 2000 with a simple subject of ILOVE and an attachment "LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs". The final vbs extension was hidden by default, leading unsuspecting users to think it was a mere text file. Upon opening the attachment, the worm sent a copy of itself to everyone in the Windows Address Book and with the user's sender address. It also made a number of malicious changes to the user's system.
Such propagation mechanism had been known (Though in IBM mainframe rather than in the MS Windows environment and used already in the Christmas Tree Exec of 1987 which brought down a number of the world's mainframes at the time.
I'm not proud of what my fellow Filipinos did because it's wrong. It's a crime! But I am proud to say that I graduated from the same University where these smart guys came from, AMA Computer University.
The last I heard, they were hired by Bill Gates after the incident and are now earning 6 figures of income.
Knowledge is powerful but use it in a good way. ;)
1 person likes this
4 responses
@o0jopak0o (6390)
• Philippines
11 May 10
well i know of this one, i know people who have encountered it in their computer.
the damage done of this virus hasnt been calculated yet because of the million of pcs that are affected.
i don't know if he is still employed but they employed him after just weeks of finding out that they released that virus.
dunno if i will be proud of them
@sophiaraine (1113)
• Philippines
11 May 10
Hi oOjopakOo. Just want to correct you there. They were able to calculate it at that time. They were employed by Gates when they were released, and yes they are still employed. I did mention that they are now earning 6 figures of income right? You don't have to be proud of them. What they did is a crime and we shouldn't be proud of crimes. I just said I'm proud because I graduated from the same university with the same major where those smart guys came from. I guess that makes me look smarter! LOL. hehe.
@sophiaraine (1113)
• Philippines
11 May 10
LOL. They are indeed lucky. If there's a way to contact Bill Gates, I'l tell him that 'hey, bill! Dude! I graduated from the same University. Might as well hire me too!'. hehehe.
@mercury_yan (127)
• China
11 May 10
i heard this bug before, it is a old bug said now. but i have never been attacked by this bug. you make a good discussion, and i will be careful about the email. thanks for your share.
@sophiaraine (1113)
• Philippines
11 May 10
Thanks mercury. I'm glad you liked it. The love bug virus is not available anymore so don't worry. hehe. ;)
@haxorfreek (523)
• Philippines
22 Oct 10
Yeah im familiar with this one. Its an old virus actually.
It infects and rename most of your files and set your homepage to sky something.
Then sends emails on all of your contacts with an attached virus and an interesting subject.


