When people received ILOVEYOU and it was not sweet
There was a time in the year 2000 when millions of people received a LOVELETTER but it was not romantic at all. In fact, it ended up creating damage worth $5.5–8.7 billion worldwide.
Sounds interesting, right? Keep on reading to know more about the ILOVEYOU Virus.
The Release
Just after the world was introduced to emails and people were adapting to the online services, Onel De Guzman, a 24-year-old Philippines student was working way ahead of his time. He was poor and could not afford to pay for internet access. That is why he ended up creating malware that could steal user’s credentials so they could access the internet.
On May 4th, 2000 the ILOVEYOU bug was released and spread out in Manila, Philippines. However, Onel was a curious head and removed the geographic restriction that led to the global spread of malware.
Later, he revealed in his statements that he believed the internet is a human right, and therefore, he did not steal anything.
The Working
The victim received an email with the subject line “ILOVEYOU” and an attachment, “LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.txt.vbs”. Windows’ parsing feature was used as an exploit. The system would parse file names from left to right and stop at the first “.”. This way only “LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.txt” was visible to the victim, and thus, it would look like a general text file. Here’s how it looked like:
Onel used Social Engineering to attract victims in opening the malware file that was actually a Visual Basic Script. Windows run any code in an email attachment as soon as the user clicks on it, and that is how the malware would enter the system.
The malware would then overwrite different types of files on the local machine and also hide all the MP3 or audio files later on. Finally, the malware sent out its copy to all the email addresses in the Microsoft Outlook address book. Thus, making the spread so rapidly that it ended up destroying the mail system and millions of files.
The Variants
The malware was easily modifiable by the user since it was written in Visual Basic. This led to the creation of more than 25 variants globally. It was audience-targeted mostly, like “Cartolina” in Italy and “BabyPic” for adults. All of these variants resulted in their own kind of damage.
The Investigation
On May 5, 2000, the Philippines’ National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) investigated Onel De Guzman and his fellow student Reonel Ramones after the Sky Internet reported that numerous allegations were made that malware had been sent out via the ISP’s servers.
De Guzman had tried to wipe out all the evidence and shifted his electronic devices to his mother’s apartments after the release. Unfortunately, he forgot some drives and documents that also indicated the involvement of another friend, Michael Beun in the conspiracy. After the surveillance, NBI traced Reonel Romanes as another possible co-conspirator and arrested him.
However, at that time there were no laws in the Philippines regarding malware attacks and hence, both the arrested suspects, De Guzman and Romanes were released as all the charges were dropped.
De Guzman has been living a low-profile life ever since, as he did not want any public attention. In 2020, he was spotted at a small mobile repair shop in Manila and admitted to being the sole creator of the malware and released it with the intent of owning credentials for internet access.
The Impact
After the worm originated in Manila, it spread globally at a rapid rate the next morning when employees went to work. While the virus managed to do huge damage of $5.5–8.7 billion, the cost estimation for the removal of the worm was even more humongous — USD 10–15 billion.
It is reported that around 10% of the computers connected over the internet were affected. To avoid the damage, large corporations, even the British Parliament had completely shut down their mail system.
The inefficiency of laws regarding the attack was also addressed as the Philippine Congress enacted Republic Act №8792, the E-Commerce Law, after the virus outbreak.
This is all for the study on Melissa Virus. I really hope it added something to your knowledge. I will be back again with something new super soon.
Till then, happy learning!
