Somebody's spreading a little love around the world, and it's not the healthy kind either. In case you haven't caught wind of today's mega-catastrophe, a new virus dubbed "the love bug" has managed to knock out or slow down corporate and government email systems worldwide. A few companies in the Net betting industry have confided that they've been bitten as well.
The world's (currently) most famous love letter operates in a similar fashion as last year's nightmare inducing Melissa virus. Like Melissa, the love bug is sent as an attached document via email, although this
particular virus seems to target Microsoft's Outlook email softwareand works on only the Windows operating system. The subject line of the poison mail says "I LOVEYOU" and includes a note saying, "Kindly check the attached LOVELETTER coming from me."
Once a recipient opens the attachment, the virus causes havoc throughout the computer, and even raids the address book to spread the "love" to even more victims. Once it infects the user's computer, it reportedly uses Microsoft's Visual Basic to rename jpeg image files and MP3 music files. After wiping out the images, music files are moved onto the system.
The virus also deletes files ending with .VGS, .VBE, .VBE, .JS, .JSE, .CSS, .WSH, .SCT, and .HTA. Then, it redirects the Internet start page to a new site where the computer is instructed to download WIN-BUGSFIX.EXE, a program to steal passwords.
And the virus has gone further than just shutting down email servers. Financial networks and ATMs have been forced down, and even some pagers that accept email messages have been swamped with the love letter as well.
Needless to say, if you receive an email with the subject "I LOVE YOU," deflate your head and come to terms with the fact that you don't have a secret admirer. What you have is pure ugliness and you should discard it immediately.