LoveBug – the worm that changed the IT security landscape – is ten years old today
Today is the tenth anniversary of the LoveBug worm, which was arguably the first malware infection that used social engineering techniques to propagate itself. Though simple in its approach, LoveBug was quite virulent in its attack methodology and, as reports of the time noted, hit several million users of the internet in its first 24 hours.
According to anti-virus reports of the time, the `virus rate' – which was normally averaging around 1.1 per 1000 emails – soared to an amazing 1 in 28 before tier 1 ISPs starting filtering the infected messages out on their own networks.
The subject line of `ILOVEYOU' attracted the attention of the recipients, but the real problems for users began when they opened the message, as it immediately replicated itself to all of the email addresses in the infected users' address book.
