10 years from the flash of sudden love
Exactly 10 years ago, almost a day, the world learned about how dangerous and invisible computer viruses can be. The unforgettable " I Love You " infected 55 million PCs in record time, and the estimated damage was billions in any currency.
A year after Melissa Virus tarnished the innocence of the worldwide network, a student from the Philippines had the idea to write a simple Visual Basic script that would send itself to the entire Outlook Address Book. The virus quickly spread throughout Europe and Asia, by the morning of May 5, "capturing" the entire planet. But perhaps we all understand that this is not a virtuoso coding made the whole venture so successful. A student from Manila, without even realizing it, extremely successfully applied social engineering.
The letter, which was a peddler of the infection, was simple enough. The application was called LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs, and the subject of the letter: “I Love You”. Before the average user managed to figure out who confesses his love, the script was already doing its job. Naturally, not everyone opened the application, but 3 million windows users could not refrain from reading the “love letter”. These people served as carriers of the first in the network "postal" virus.
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Which, unlike Melissa, who exclusively multiplied, did many unpleasant things on the victim's computer. First, he immediately scattered photos and music files, tried to download and install a Trojan that intercepted passwords and sent them to the Philippines. One could even say that it is this trait that makes “I Love You” the direct ancestor of modern botnets, which are larger and more complex.
Police tracked down a 23-year-old student, Onel de Guzmán, fairly quickly. However, what was not happening quickly was the process of adjusting the Philippine Criminal Code for this case, since there was not a single law saying that it was the creator of the virus. Since then, we all have a very responsible approach to the issue of viewing applications in e-mail. Joke.
source: Wired
A year after Melissa Virus tarnished the innocence of the worldwide network, a student from the Philippines had the idea to write a simple Visual Basic script that would send itself to the entire Outlook Address Book. The virus quickly spread throughout Europe and Asia, by the morning of May 5, "capturing" the entire planet. But perhaps we all understand that this is not a virtuoso coding made the whole venture so successful. A student from Manila, without even realizing it, extremely successfully applied social engineering.
The letter, which was a peddler of the infection, was simple enough. The application was called LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs, and the subject of the letter: “I Love You”. Before the average user managed to figure out who confesses his love, the script was already doing its job. Naturally, not everyone opened the application, but 3 million windows users could not refrain from reading the “love letter”. These people served as carriers of the first in the network "postal" virus.
')
Which, unlike Melissa, who exclusively multiplied, did many unpleasant things on the victim's computer. First, he immediately scattered photos and music files, tried to download and install a Trojan that intercepted passwords and sent them to the Philippines. One could even say that it is this trait that makes “I Love You” the direct ancestor of modern botnets, which are larger and more complex.
Police tracked down a 23-year-old student, Onel de Guzmán, fairly quickly. However, what was not happening quickly was the process of adjusting the Philippine Criminal Code for this case, since there was not a single law saying that it was the creator of the virus. Since then, we all have a very responsible approach to the issue of viewing applications in e-mail. Joke.
source: Wired
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/92735/
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