Next, it overwrote and deleted images and other files on the victim’s hard drive. In the body a short message said: “Kindly check the attached LOVELETTER coming from me.” When email users opened the file, the virus quickly took control.įirst, the virus started with sending copies of itself to the first 50 addresses in the user’s address book. The virus spread through an email with the file attachment “”. Only because, at that time, there was no law covering computer hacking. Despite mountains of evidence, all charges against Onel de Guzman were eventually dropped.
Until today, the Love Bug worm remains one of the farthest-reaching computer viruses of all times. Why? He appeared to have set lose the so called ILOVEYOU computer virus, a worm that infected tens of millions of Windows computers around the world in May 2000. 20 years ago, a young Filipino programmer, Onel de Guzman, was about to become the prime suspect in a criminal investigation.
