Copycats of 'I Love You' Worm Spread Copycats of 'I Love You' Worm Spread Paul Jones
Copycat versions of the "I Love You" virus, which wreaked havoc on computers around the world Thursday, began appearing soon after warnings went out about the initial virus.
In Europe, by midday Friday, five different versions of the "I Love You" worm had been identified with more expected to appear over the weekend, according to Mikko Hypponen, manager of Anti-Virus Research at F-Secure Corp. in Espoo, Finland. The Melissa outbreak last year, which followed a similar pattern, has lead to the creation of about 40 versions of that virus.
Forty-five million e-mail users reportedly received the original "I Love You" virus in its first day of circulation. The virus is an e-mail worm using VBScript which spreads by sending itself to e-mail addresses in victims' address books, and destroys some media files.
Michael Erbschloe, vice president of Research for Computer Economics Inc., said his firm estimates the virus has already caused $2.61 billion in damages.
The first copycat identified, a version called "Very Funny" circulating in an e-mail headed "FWD: Joke," was just like the "I Love You" virus. It had simply been renamed. But Elias Levy, of Security Focus, wrote to the Bugtraq security mailing list, "At least in some instances it seems tabs in the virus code have been changed to spaces. That means the code looks the same but it's not. Some antivirus products may be fooled by this."
