First victims of this malware received an email with a subject reading “ILOVEYOU”. ILOVEYOU was a computer worm designed to spread through emails of Microsoft Outlook users. In the end, the world has suffered billions of dollars in losses, up to 80% of computer networks in select countries become infected and the malware itself has acquired a Guinness book record for causing the most damage. It is not surprising then, that one of the first malware to use social engineering and massive email spam campaigns would cause nothing short of a malware pandemic. Then, people were not used to receiving tons of spam emails. Twenty years ago the internet was different. We didn’t know it then, but this worm would forever change how we view malware, causing devastating damage.
On the 4th of May 2000, a new malicious program was released into the wild - ILOVEYOU, also known as Loveletter and Lovebug.