Name | ILOVEYOU |
Additional Names | Love Bug or Love Letter for you |
Type of Malware | Worm |
Location – Country of Origin | Philippines |
Date of initial activity | 2000 |
Associated Groups | Onel de Guzman Or Lto3 |
Motivation | Stealing Passwords |
Attack Vectors | |
Targeted System | Microsoft Windows 95, 98, or NT 4.0. |
Overview
ILOVEYOU is 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
Targets
Regular Users
Tools/ Techniques Used
ILOVEYOU relied on the scripting engine system setting (.vbs files) being enabled and took advantage of a feature in Windows that hid file extensions by default, which malware authors would use as an exploit.
Impact / Significant Attacks
The outbreak was later estimated to have caused US$5.5–8.7 billion in damages worldwide and estimated to cost US$10–15 billion to remove the worm. It was estimated that 10% of Internet-connected computers in the world had been affected.
References