On May 4, 2000, many computers received an e-mail. It was an apparent declaration of love with hidden intentions. After overcoming the dreaded 2000 effect, a virus caused millions of dollars in damage after infect approximately 50 million computers, 10 percent of all devices with an Internet connection at that time. This computer worm arrived through an email message with the subject ILOVEYOU and an attachment that pretended to be a love letter. Opening it infected the computer and forwarded itself to all user contacts. Its creator is 44 years old today and has explained what were your motivations to create this threat.
Onel de Guzmán lives in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, and runs a mobile repair shop. A BBC News journalist He found his whereabouts and explained how he conceived this virus. It was a renewed version of another virus with which wanted to steal passwords because he couldn't afford Internet access. What he did not imagine was that it was going to cause so much damage. Initially, it only sent the virus to users in the Philippines, but later modified the code using a bug in the Windows 95 operating system. This change caused the message will spread automatically to all the contacts of the victims, whose epicenter was Singapore.
But it only took a few hours to infect thousands of computers in Asia, Europe and North America and soon there were millions. Faster than the 1999 Mellisa virus. affected even the Pentagon and the British Parliament, who shut down his email network for hours to protect himself. The local police found the origin of the virus at Onel Guzmán's house and on May 11, 2000, accompanied by his lawyer, he recognized that he had spread the virus by accident. At the time, the Philippines had no cybercrime laws, so despite the damage caused, he was acquitted of all charges. The reality was that De Guzmán was preparing a thesis for the AMA Computer College on a program to obtain Windows passwords, steal and recover Internet accounts. His thesis was rejected by his teacher for obvious reasons.
As his lawyer explained, "He didn't even know that his actions would actually lead to the reported results". He is still amazed that it went that far. Only 5 days after its creation, there was already 18 virus mutations with the consequent collapse of the Internet and communications in many countries. And why that romantic subject of the message and not another? De Guzmán thought of a message attractive to everyone. "I realized that many people want a partner, they love each other, they want love, so I called it that"he confessed.
