What Exactly is ILOVEYOU Virus and How to Prevent It?

What is ILOVEYOU Virus 

The ILOVEYOU virus arrives in an email note with "I LOVE YOU" in the headline and contains a connection that, when opened, brings about the message being re-sent to everybody in the beneficiary's Microsoft Viewpoint address book and, maybe more truly, the loss of each JPEG, MP3, and certain other files on the beneficiary's hard circle. Since Microsoft Standpoint is broadly installed as the email handler in corporate networks, the ILOVEYOU virus can spread quickly from user to user within a partnership. On May 4, 2000, the virus spread so rapidly that email had to be closed down in a number of significant enterprises, for example, the Ford Motor Company. The virus arrived at an expected 45 million users in a single day.

How Can it Spread? 

The connection in the ILOVEYOU virus is a VBScript program that, when opened (for instance, by double-clicking on it with your mouse), finds the beneficiary's Viewpoint address book and re-sends the note to everybody in it. It then overwrites (and along these lines decimates) all files of the following file types: JPEG, MP3, VPOS, JS, JSE, CSS, WSH, SCT, and HTA. Users who don't have a backup duplicate will have lost these files. (In Walk 1999, a virus named Melissa virus additionally duplicated itself by using Standpoint address books, yet was less hurtful in destroying user files.) The ILOVEYOU virus likewise resets the beneficiary's Internet Wayfarer start page in a manner that may raise a further ruckus, resets certain Windows library settings,

One of the initial steps organizations used to avert the ILOVEYOU virus was to screen out notes with ILOVEYOU in the headline. Be that as it may, hackers immediately introduced copycat varieties with titles differently identifying "JOKE" and "Mother's Day!" as the substance, however containing the equivalent or comparable VBScript code. In any event, 12 varieties have been distinguished. The most sinister change is without a doubt the one with the headline containing "VIRUS ALERT!!!" Posing as a virus fix from Symantec, the note begins with "Dear Symantec Customer." The connection (which ought not to be opened) is "protect.vbs."

How to Keep from it? 

Organizations and users are advised to get or update anti-virus software that can help screen for the virus and expel it for users whose systems have been infected. Users are constantly advised never to open an email connection without screening it with anti-virus software or knowing precisely who sent it and what it is.

Purpose of ILOVEYOU Virus 

In spite of the fact that its real reason for existing is dim, some portion of the motivation behind the I Love You virus was to steal online passwords from its victims.

When the virus was released, it went to work on the multimedia files within the computer, rewriting them and turning them into further infection instruments (as though it wasn't already doing enough harm without it.)

Configuration firms, photographers, media organizations, and the like where jpegs, music, and video files are vigorously utilized were particularly defenseless.

The Most Effective Method to Expel ILOVEYOU Virus 

The Affection Letter Virus (Variations A, B, C, E, F, and H) can be expelled manually by following the means beneath:

• Click Start, Find, Files or Folder and search for *.VBS and erase all files found on the hard drive. 
• Search for the file LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.HTM found in the Windows System directory and erase it. 
• Search for WIN-BUGSFIX.EXE and WINFAT32.EXE found in the Internet Wayfarer download directory and erase these files. 
• When these files have been erased void the Reuse Bin and restart the computer and the Virus ought to be successfully expelled from the computer. 

It is likewise suggested in the event that you are as of now running an antivirus software program that you update it with the most recent virus update. Doing this likewise expels all hints of this virus as all significant virus organizations have updates on their pages.