ILOVEYOU
20 years ago this week on May the 4th saw the unfortunate release of a simple email message that caused an estimated $20 billion in overall damage and spread to nearly 10% of all internet connected computers on the planet.
It looked simple on its surface. A message that contained a file titled “LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.txt.vbs”. That was why most people who recieved it would think nothing about danger if they clicked it. It contained a computer worm that would duplicate itself and send a similar message to every person in the Windows address book, and in doing so proved not to be so simple.
The worm was written in a vbs file and exploited a default in the way Windows would read file names. This allowed it to hide the vbs extension and make it seem to be a standard text file. Once opened the vbs script would be forced opened in Microsoft Outlook. It then would replace files with common extensions with copies of itself and send them to every address within the program and finally rendering the computer unbootable.
To add further damage vbs files are very easily overwritten and modified to destroy even more specific files and information, or simply change the name of the file. More than 25 variations were spread along with the initial worm. Governments and large corporations were forced to shut down entire mailing systems.
The worm was traced to the Philippines were two men were arrested. At the time the judicial system didn’t know what to charge them with since no laws against malware existed. They were forced to charged them with different crimes and those charges were dropped. Two months later the E-Commerce law in the Philippines was passed.
A simple message for simpler (internet) times.
