20 years ago, millions of computers around the world were hit by the then-new ILOVEYOU virus. The program infiltrated the Pentagon and shut down the British Parliament’s servers. Overall damage from the attack is estimated at several billion dollars. Years later, it became known about the fate of the hacker as well as the details of the creation of the dangerous program.
There were many rumors about the author of ILOVEYOU. Someone said he was hiding in Germany, Austria, or the United States. Some claimed that he had been recruited by Microsoft. Ironically, it was all fiction. He lives in Manila, Philippines, and owns a small mobile phone repair shop. He’s 44 years old, and he’s very sorry for what he did 20 years ago.
Curiously, despite the damage, the hacker was not punished. It is all about imperfections of the legislation in which at that moment there was no item «Hacking». Twenty years later, one of the journalists spoke to Onel and found out what was really going on.
The computer worm Love Bug was originally created to steal passwords because a young Filipino student just wanted to use the Internet for free. After a while, he decided to refine the virus by installing an automated mailing system, as well as an embedding called LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU. After that, Onel sent it to an unknown person in Singapore. The virus contained malicious code that overwritten files, stole passwords, and automatically sent copies to all of the victim’s contacts in the Microsoft Outlook address book.
Within the first 24 hours, it was reported that a global viral attack had spread to 45 million devices. He said he didn’t even know this was gonna happen. In his view, the reason for this is on the surface: many people want new friends or close relationships. That’s why they were clicking on malicious investment.
