ILOVEYOU - Wikipedia

ILOVEYOU, sometimes referred to as the Love Bug or Loveletter, was a computer worm that infected over ten million Windows personal computers on and after 5 May 2000. It started spreading as an email message with the subject line “ILOVEYOU” and the attachment “LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs”.¹ Windows computers often hide the latter file extension (” VBS ”, a type of interpreted file) by default because it is an extension for a file type that Windows knows, leading unwitting users to think it was a normal text file. Opening the attachment activates the Visual Basic script. First, the worm inflicts damage on the local machine, overwriting random files (including Office files and image files; however, it hides MP3 files instead of deleting them), then, it copies itself to all addresses in the Windows Address Book used by Microsoft Outlook, allowing it to spread much faster than any other previous email worm.^{2 3}

Onel de Guzman,⁴ a then-24-year-old computer science student at AMA Computer College ⁵ and resident of Manila, Philippines, created the malware. Because there were no laws in the Philippines against making malware at the time of its creation, the Philippine Congress enacted Republic Act No. 8792, otherwise known as the E-Commerce Law, in July 2000 to discourage future iterations of such activity. However, the Constitution of the Philippines prohibits ex post facto laws, and as such de Guzman could not be prosecuted.⁶

Background

The ILOVEYOU worm was coded by Onel de Guzman, then a student at AMA Computer College of the Philippines. At the time of its creation, de Guzman was poor and struggling to pay for the country’s dial-up internet access.⁵ De Guzman believed that internet access was a human right,⁵ and submitted an undergraduate thesis to the college which proposed the development of a trojan to steal internet login details.⁷ He claimed that this would allow users to be able to afford an internet connection, arguing that those affected by it would experience no loss.⁵ The proposal was rejected by the college, which remarked that his proposal was “illegal” and that “they did not produce burglars”.⁷ This led de Guzman to claim that his professors were closed-minded,⁴ and he ultimately dropped out of the college and began development of the worm.⁸

Architecture

De Guzman wrote ILOVEYOU in VBScript, and the Windows Script Host is utilized to run the code. ILOVEYOU was distributed through malicious email attachments. The worm was found in emails with the subject “ILOVEYOU” and a message of “Kindly check the attached love letter from me!” The attachment LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs contained the worm.⁹

Upon opening the file, the worm copies itself into relevant directories so it will be run upon reboot of the computer. Two of the three copies masquerade as legitimate Microsoft Windows library files, named MSKernel32.vbs and Win32DLL.vbs. The other copy retains the original LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs name.¹⁰

The worm attempts to download a trojan horse named WIN-BUGSFIX.exe. To achieve this, the victim’s Internet Explorer homepage is set to a URL that downloads the trojan upon opening the browser. If the download is successful, the trojan is set to run upon reboot and the Internet Explorer homepage is set to a blank page. The trojan fulfils Guzman’s primary aim by stealing passwords.¹⁰

The worm sends its trademark email to all contacts in the victim’s address book. To prevent multiple emails being sent to one person from each successive run of the worm, a registry key is generated for each address book entry once an email has been sent. The worm will only send an email if the registry key is not present. This also allows for emails to be sent to new contacts placed in the address book. ILOVEYOU also has the capability to spread via Internet Relay Chat channels.¹⁰

The worm searches connected drives for files to modify. All VBScript files it finds (.vbs,.vbe) are overwritten with the worm’s code. Files with extensions .jpg, .jpeg, .js,.jse, .css, .wsh,.sct, .doc and .hta are replaced with copies of the worm that have the same base file name but appended with the.vbs extension. Copies for .mp2 and .mp3 files are similarly produced, but the original files are hidden instead of removed.¹⁰

Deceptive methods

The email format is considered to be one of the first examples of malware using social engineering, by encouraging victims to open the attached file under the pretext they had a lover who was attempting to contact them.¹¹ This was exacerbated by the fact that emails appeared to come from close contacts as a result of the worm’s use of its previous victim’s contact lists.¹² The worm’s subsequent success has resulted in the use of social engineering in many modern-day malware attacks. The attachment exploited a feature of Microsoft Outlook where only one file extension would be displayed. As the file name was parsed from left to right, which would be stopped after the first period, to victims the attachment would appear to be an inconspicuous .txt file incapable of holding malware. The worm’s real.vbs extension was hidden.¹² De Guzman also claimed that a bug in Windows 95, where code in email attachments was automatically run upon being clicked, contributed to the worm’s success.⁵

Variants

The fact that the worm was written in VBScript allowed users to modify it. A user could easily change the worm to replace essential files and destroy the system, allowing more than 25 variations of ILOVEYOU to spread across the Internet, each doing different kinds of damage.¹³ Most of the variations had to do with what file extensions were affected by the worm. Others modified the email subject to target a specific audience, like the variant ” Cartolina ” (“postcard”) in Italian or “BabyPic” for adults. Some others only changed the credits to the author, which were initially included in the standard version of the virus, removing them entirely or referencing false authors.¹³ Others overwrote ” EXE ” and ” COM ” files, and the user’s computer would then be unbootable upon restarting.

Some mail messages sent by ILOVEYOU include:

• VIRUS ALERT!!¹⁴
• Important! Read Carefully!!¹⁴

Spread

Originally designing the worm to only work in Manila, De Guzman removed this geographic restriction out of curiosity, which allowed the worm to spread worldwide. De Guzman did not expect this worldwide spread.⁵

The worm originated in the Pandacan neighborhood of Manila in the Philippines on 4 May 2000,¹⁵ thereafter moving westward through corporate email systems as employees began their workday that Friday morning – moving first to Hong Kong, then to Europe, and finally the United States.^{16 17} Because the worm used mailing lists as its source of targets, the messages often appeared to come from acquaintances and were therefore often regarded as “safe” by their victims, providing further incentive to open them. Only a few users at each site had to access the attachment to generate millions more messages that crippled mail systems and overwrote millions of files on computers in each successive network.¹⁸

Impact

The outbreak was estimated to have caused US$5.5–8.7billionindamagesworldwide,{[}^{1}9]{[}^{2}0]andestimatedtocostUS$10–15 billion to remove the worm.^{19 20} Within ten days, over fifty million infections had been reported,²¹ and it is estimated that 10% of Internet-connected computers in the world had been affected.¹⁹ Damage cited was mostly the time and effort spent getting rid of the infection and recovering files from backups. At the time, it was one of the world’s most destructive computer related disasters ever.^{22 23 24}

Europe

In the United Kingdom, the worm reached the email servers of the House of Commons on 4 May.⁷ The servers were shut down for two hours in response.¹⁶ The worm affected the banking system of Belgium.²⁵

United States

The worm affected most federal government agencies and caused disruption to multiple, including the Department of Justice, the Department of Labor and the Social Security Administration.²⁵ Operations of the Department of Defense were significantly obstructed,²⁵ with the Central Intelligence Agency additionally affected ¹⁶ and the United States Army having 2258 infected workstations which cost approximately US$79,200 to recover.²⁶ The Veterans Health Administration received 7,000,000 ILOVEYOU emails during the outbreak, requiring 240 man-hours of work to resolve the problems created.²⁵ Files at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration were damaged, and in some cases unrecoverable from backups.²⁵

Cultural impact

The events inspired the song “E-mail” on the Pet Shop Boys ’ UK top-ten album of 2002, Release, the lyrics of which play thematically on the human desires which enabled the mass destruction of this computer infection.

“I love you [rev.eng]” exhibited in July 2006 is a revamped and expanded version of an exhibition shown in June 2002 in the Museum for Applied Art in Frankfurt, in February 2003 at transmediale in Berlin, in August 2004 at the Watson Institute of the Brown University USA and in October 2004 at the Museum for Communication Copenhagen, Denmark.²⁷ In 2009, Kiat Kiat Projects curated an email exhibition entitled “How to Prevent Hair Loss” inspired by ILOVEYOU.^{28 29}

The worm inspired the 2011 movie Subject: I Love You starring Jericho Rosales and Briana Evigan.³⁰ In 2019, The Persistence of Chaos, a laptop infected with six viruses including ILOVEYOU was sold at auction by Chinese artist Guo O Dong.³¹ In November 2024, The Museum of Malware Art in Helsinki, Finland included a sculpture about ILOVEYOU.³²

Investigation

On 5 May 2000, de Guzman and another young Filipino programmer named Reonel Ramones became targets of a criminal investigation by agents of the Philippines’ National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).³³ Local Internet service provider Sky Internet had reported receiving numerous contacts from European computer users alleging that malware (in the form of the “ILOVEYOU” worm) had been sent via the ISP’s servers.³⁴

De Guzman attempted to hide the evidence by removing his computer from his apartment, but he accidentally left some disks behind that contained the worm, as well as information that implicated a possible co-conspirator.⁵

After surveillance and investigation by Darwin Bawasanta of Sky Internet, the NBI traced a frequently appearing telephone number to Ramones’ apartment in Manila. His residence was searched and Ramones was arrested and placed under investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ). De Guzman was also charged in absentia.

At that point, the NBI was unsure of what felony or crime would apply.³³ It was suggested they be charged with violating Republic Act 8484 (the Access Device Regulation Act), a law designed mainly to penalize credit card fraud, since both used pre-paid (if not stolen) Internet cards to purchase access to ISPs. Another idea was that they could be charged with malicious mischief, a felony (under the Philippines Revised Penal Code of 1932) involving damage to property. The drawback here was that one of its elements, aside from damage to property, was intent to damage, and de Guzman had claimed during custodial investigations that he might have unwittingly released the worm.⁴ At a press conference organized by his lawyer on 11 May, he said “It is possible” when asked whether he might have done so.⁵

To show intent, the NBI investigated AMA Computer College, where de Guzman had dropped out at the very end of his final year.³³

Aftermath

Since there were no laws in the Philippines against writing malware at the time, both Ramones and de Guzman were released, with all charges dropped by state prosecutors.³⁵ To address this legislative deficiency,³³ the Philippine Congress enacted Republic Act No. 8792,³⁶ otherwise known as the E-Commerce Law, in July 2000, months after the worm outbreak.⁶

In 2012, the Smithsonian Institution named ILOVEYOU one of the top ten most virulent computer viruses in history.¹¹

De Guzman did not want public attention. His last known public appearance was at the 2000 press conference, where he obscured his face and allowed his lawyer to answer most questions; his whereabouts remained unknown for 20 years afterward. In May 2020, investigative journalist Geoff White revealed that while researching his cybercrime book Crime Dot Com, he had found de Guzman working at a mobile phone repair stall in Manila. De Guzman admitted to creating and releasing the virus.³⁷ He claimed he had initially developed it to steal internet access passwords, since he could not afford to pay for access. He also stated that he created it alone, clearing the two others who had been accused of co-writing the worm.^{38 39}

See also

• Christmas Tree EXEC
• Code Red worm
• Computer virus
• NewLove
• Nimda
• Timeline of notable computer viruses and worms
• The Persistence of Chaos (artwork)

References

External links

• The Love Bug - A Retrospect
• ILOVEYOU Virus Lessons Learned Report, Army Forces Command (archive)
• Radsoft: The ILOVEYOU Roundup
• "" at The Register
• CERT Advisory CA-2000-04 Love Letter Worm (archive)

Footnotes

1. Poulsen, Kevin (3 May 2010). “May 4, 2000: Tainted ‘Love’ Infects Computers”. Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Archived from the original on 28 July 2021. Retrieved 28 July 2021. ↩

2. “What is the ILOVEYOU worm, what does it do, and how do I detect and remove it?“. University Information Technology Services. 18 January 2018. Archived from the original on 28 July 2021. Retrieved 28 July 2021. ↩

3. Mezquita, Ty (3 February 2020). “ILOVEYOU Virus”. CyberHoot. Archived from the original on 10 August 2020. Retrieved 28 July 2021. ↩

4. Landler, Mark (21 October 2000). “A Filipino Linked to ‘Love Bug’ Talks About His License to Hack”. The New York Times. Archived from the original on 23 March 2010. Retrieved 5 May 2010. ↩ ↩² ↩³

5. White, Geoff (12 September 2020). “The 20-Year Hunt for the Man Behind the Love Bug Virus”. Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Archived from the original on 15 September 2020. Retrieved 15 September 2020. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

6. Caña, Paul John (4 May 2020). “Filipino Creator of the ‘I Love You’ Virus Just Did It So He Could Get Free Internet”. Esquire Philippines. Archived from the original on 7 June 2020. Retrieved 19 January 2021. ↩ ↩²

7. Griffiths, James (2 May 2020). “How a badly-coded computer virus caused billions in damage | CNN Business”. CNN. Retrieved 29 June 2024. ↩ ↩² ↩³

8. “Virus Charges Dropped”. The New York Times. 6 September 2000. Retrieved 4 January 2025. ↩

9. Meek, James (5 May 2000). “Love bug virus creates worldwide chaos”. The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 10 June 2024. ↩

10. Bishop, Matt. (2000). Analysis of the ILOVEYOU Worm. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

11. Poulsen, Kevin (3 May 2010). “Top Ten Most-Destructive Computer Viruses”. Smithsonian Magazine. Archived from the original on 17 May 2014. Retrieved 10 June 2024. ↩ ↩²

12. Winder, Davey (4 May 2020). “This 20-Year-Old Virus Infected 50 Million Windows Computers In 10 Days: Why The ILOVEYOU Pandemic Matters In 2020”. Forbes. Archived from the original on 24 October 2020. Retrieved 10 June 2024. ↩ ↩²

13. “I LOVE YOU Virus Help”. Computer Hope. Archived from the original on 9 February 2013. Retrieved 11 February 2013. ↩ ↩²

14. “Symantec detects all known new variants of VBS.LoveLetter.A worm”. Symantec. 6 May 2000. Archived from the original on 16 March 2014. Retrieved 8 February 2013. ↩ ↩²

15. “No excuse for virus toll, warns MessageLabs”. MessageLabs. 10 May 2000. Archived from the original on 14 December 2000. ↩

16. Kane, Margaret (3 May 2000). “‘ILOVEYOU’ e-mail worm invades PCs”. ZDNET. Archived from the original on 30 June 2024. Retrieved 29 June 2024. ↩ ↩² ↩³

17. “‘Love bug’ hacker is Pandacan man, 23”. The Philippine Star. Archived from the original on 3 February 2014. Retrieved 23 August 2013. ↩

18. Mersch, Amy; Nealis, Ellen. “6 Common Types of Malware”. blog.totalprosource.com. Archived from the original on 28 July 2021. Retrieved 28 July 2021. ↩

19. Winder, Davey (4 May 2020). “This 20-Year-Old Virus Infected 50 Million Windows Computers In 10 Days: Why The ILOVEYOU Pandemic Matters In 2020”. Forbes. Archived from the original on 1 August 2021. Retrieved 22 February 2021. ↩ ↩²

20. Buckland, Jason. “The ‘love’ bug — 10 worst cybercrimes of the decade”. tech.ca.msn.com. Archived from the original on 27 October 2011. ↩

21. Barker, Gary (14 May 2000). “Microsoft May Have Been Target of Lovebug”. The Age. ↩

22. “5 most dangerous computer viruses of all time”. in.news.yahoo.com. Retrieved 28 July 2021. ↩

23. “10 Deadliest Computer Viruses of All Time”. Hongkiat. 10 July 2021. Archived from the original on 28 July 2021. Retrieved 28 July 2021. ↩

24. “Top 10 Most Destructive Computer Viruses of All Time | Advanced Computer Consulting”. www.advancedcpc.com. 24 September 2018. Archived from the original on 28 July 2021. Retrieved 28 July 2021. ↩

25. Brock Jr., Jack (18 May 2000). Critical Infrastructure Protection: “ILOVEYOU” Computer Virus Highlights Need for Improved Alert and Coordination Capabilities (PDF) (Report). Retrieved 30 June 2024. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

26. “ILOVEYOU” Virus: Lessons Learned Report (PDF) (Report). United States Army. 29 April 2003. Retrieved 30 June 2024. ↩

27. “I Love You [Rev.Eng] • Digicult | Digital Art, Design and Culture”. Digicult | Digital Art, Design and Culture. 20 July 2006. Archived from the original on 15 December 2024. Retrieved 15 December 2024. ↩

28. “How to Prevent Hair Loss, Kiat Kiat Projects - NECSUS”. necsus-ejms.org. 11 December 2023. Archived from the original on 15 December 2024. Retrieved 15 December 2024. ↩

29. “ArtAsiaPacific: Alternative Toolkits: Interview with Kiat Kiat Projects”. artasiapacific.com. Archived from the original on 15 December 2024. Retrieved 15 December 2024. ↩

30. “Premiere of Jericho Rosales’ international film Subject: I Love You at Newport Beach Film Festival sold out”. SPOT.PH. 3 May 2011. Archived from the original on 26 January 2025. Retrieved 15 December 2024. ↩

31. Magazine, Smithsonian; Solly, Meilan. “A Laptop Infected With the World’s Most Dangerous Viruses Sold for $1.3 Million”. Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 15 December 2024. ↩

32. “Art and cybersecurity collide at the Museum of Malware Art”. Cybernews. 5 July 2024. Archived from the original on 3 November 2024. Retrieved 15 December 2024. ↩

33. Gana, Severino H. Jr. “Prosecution Of Cyber Crimes Through Appropriate Cyber Legislation In The Republic Of The Philippines”. www.acpf.org. Archived from the original on 6 February 2008. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

34. “ILOVEYOU: The wrong kind of LoveLetter”. WeLiveSecurity. 14 February 2017. Archived from the original on 28 July 2021. Retrieved 28 July 2021. ↩

35. Arnold, Wayne (22 August 2000). “Technology; Philippines to Drop Charges on E-Mail Virus”. The New York Times. Archived from the original on 9 February 2011. Retrieved 5 May 2010. ↩

36. “Republic Act No. 8792 — An Act Providing For The Recognition And Use Of Electronic Commercial And Non-Commercial Transactions And Documents, Penalties For Unlawful Use Thereof And For Other Purposes”. 1 August 2001. Archived from the original on 5 December 2010. Retrieved 5 December 2010 – via ChanRobles.com. ↩

37. Tyagi, Sachin (6 August 2022). “What is The First Computer Virus in The Philippines? (2022)“. Archived from the original on 15 August 2022. Retrieved 16 August 2022. ↩

38. White, Geoff (2 May 2020). “Love Bug’s creator tracked down to repair shop in Manila”. BBC News. Archived from the original on 3 May 2020. Retrieved 3 May 2020. ↩

39. White, Geoff (21 April 2020). “Revealed: The man behind the first major computer virus pandemic”. Computer Weekly. Archived from the original on 19 November 2024. Retrieved 3 May 2020. ↩