The Building

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The Man behind The World 's first major Computer Virus outbreak has admitted his guilt, 20 years after his software, millions of computers infected worldwide.

Filipino Onel de Guzman, 44, says he unleashed the Love Bug Computer Worm to crack passwords so he could access The Internet without having to pay.

He claims that he spread never the intention of it, in The World .

And he says he regrets the damage that its code caused.

"I did not expect that it would United States and Europe. I was surprised," He Said in an interview for crime Dot Com, a forthcoming book on cyber-crime.

The Love Bug pandemic began at the 4. May 2000.

the victims will receive an E-Mail attachment entitled LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU. They contain malicious code that overwrite the files, steal passwords, and automatically send copies of itself to all contacts in The Victim 's Microsoft Outlook address book.

Within 24 hours, it was causing big problems around The World , to infect according to reports, 45 million devices. He also organisations, " E-Mail systems, and some IT managers overwhelmed separately, to prevent parts of their infrastructure to an infection.

This led to run to the estimates of damages and malfunctions, in billions of pounds.

In the UK, Parliament closed its E-Mail network for several hours, in order to protect themselves, and even The Pentagon was allegedly affected.

The year-on-year, the Melissa error, it is assumed that infected A Million machines with similar tactics. But, love the bow in the shadow of previous outbreaks exposed and how vulnerable The World 's increasing internet connectivity was to attack.

investigators traced The Virus to an E-Mail address registered to an apartment in Manila, capital of the Philippines.

the occupants of The brother Onel de Guzman, a Computer Science student at The City AMA Computer College. He was a member of an underground hacking group called the grams, soft, and quickly became The Lead suspect in a police investigation.

De Guzman's lawyer organized a Press Conference on 11 may, in the case of de Guzman appeared to speak little English.

When asked whether He Said The Virus may accidentally, de Guzman, published: "It is possible. "

At The Time , the Philippines had no law on computer hacking, and neither de Guzman nor anyone else was ever prosecuted.

the suspicion also fell to de Guzman fellow student Michael Buen , who has been quoted online as a co-author of the Love Bug .

I was on the track, Onel de Guzman, and solve the 20 year mystery of the Love Bug 's origin.

Online alleged rumors that de Guzman had moved to Germany, Austria or the USA. Some claimed that he was recruited by Microsoft after the outbreak. It all proved to be wide of The Mark .

At a forum of the Philippine is committed to world, a user claimed that in the year 2016, that de Guzman delivery a Mobile Phone repair shop in the Quiapo district of Manila. In April 2019, I visited the area in The Hope to encounter, The Suspect , only to find a sprawling market with dozens of phone repair shops.

I wrote Onel de Guzman's name on a piece of paper and showed it to the shop-workers at random, in The Hope that someone would recognize it. Finally, a staff member Said he knew of de Guzman and believed he worked in a phone repair booth in a shopping mall elsewhere in Manila.

After several hours of walking around The Mall , and de Guzman to show the name, I was instructed to turn a cramped, chaotic booth at the very back of The Building , and after waiting several hours for him to Onel de Guzman came.

He acknowledged, With Love , the error, He Said , was a revised version of a previous virus, he had coded, to steal Internet Access passwords.

In the age of dial-up internet, these passwords were required to go online, and de Guzman says he could not afford to pay for.

He claims that he first of all, The Virus only be sent to the Philippine victims, with whom he communicated in chat, because he just wanted to steal Internet Access passwords, worked in his environment.

But, in the spring of 2000, he optimized The Code , add an auto-spread function, would send the copies of The Virus to the victims' Outlook contacts with an error in the Microsoft Windows 95 Operating System . He also created a title for the E-Mail attachment, which would have global appeal, to open tempting people all over The World to it.

"I found out that many people want a friend, you want to each other, they want to love, I called it," He Said .

Onel de Guzman says he regrets the harm his creation caused

De Guzman claims he sent The Virus to a Person in Singapore, And Then the drink went with a friend. The First he knew of the global chaos he had unleashed when His Mother told him the police were on the hunt of a hacker in Manila.

He explained that His Mother hid his computer equipment. De Guzman is Buen had nothing to do with the Love Bug and that he is its sole Creator.

After a period of Lying Low , de Guzman returned to work on the computer but go to college. He now runs the small Stand with another member of staff.

he says he regrets that the letter from The Virus , and the infamy it brought him.

"Sometimes I get my picture on The Internet ," He Said .

"tell My Friends " that's her!' I'm not a shy person I want. "

cyber-crime, cyber-security, manila

Source of news: bbc.com