It was May 11, 2000, and if de Guzman was feeling shell-shocked, he had good reason to be. He was accused of authoring and releasing the first truly global computer virus that had disrupted the operations of businesses and government agencies the world over, from Ford (F) and Merrill Lynch to the Pentagon and the British Parliament, and was on track to cause a estimated $10 billion in damages — all in the name of love.

How a badly-coded computer virus caused billions in damage and exposed vulnerabilities which remain 20 years on

Twenty years on, the ILOVEYOU virus remains one of the farthest reaching ever. Tens of millions of computers around the world were affected. The fight to contain the malware and track down its author was front page news globally, waking up a largely complacent public to the dangers posed by malicious cyber actors. It also exposed vulnerabilities which we are still dealing with to this day, despite two decades of advances in computer security and technology. 

This account of the virus is based on interviews with law enforcement and investigators involved in the original case, contemporaneous CNN reporting and reports by the FBI, Philippines police and the Pentagon.

Multiple attempts to reach Onel de Guzman for this article, including through his family and former lawyer, were unsuccessful. De Guzman had not commented publicly since around 2000, until this week when author Geoff White tracked him down to the phone repair shop he now runs in Manila, where he admitted to authoring the virus.

This article is from CNN. You can read it in full at the following link: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/01/tech/iloveyou-virus-computer-security-intl-hnk/