The ILOVEYOU / Love Letter worm

2000

The Love Letter worm, sent from Manila on 4 May 2000 as an attachment named LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs. It overwrote files and re-mailed itself to every Outlook contact, hitting tens of millions of machines within days; the Philippines had no law to charge the author under. It is the moment social engineering beat technical controls at global scale. The subject dates from 2000; the photograph itself is later.