The deadliest computer viruses ever, disastrous and catastrophic for the entire digital world
I LOVE YOU - 'heart-breaker' LoveLetter began appearing as a Valentine's-style message in e-mail inboxes all over the world in May 2000. The subject line was ILOVEYOU and the message read 'kindly check the attached LOVELETTER coming from me.' Attached to the e-mail was a program which, when the recipient opened it, immediately forwarded the message on to everyone in their address book, gradually clogging the world's networks. LoveLetter was one of the largest 'mass mailers', and also used social engineering, the tactic of exploiting human nature, to devastating effect, in this case by pulling on the recipient's heartstrings. The estimated losses were about $ 8.7 billion and roughly ten percent of all the computers that were connected to the internet were affected. Sql Slammer - 'fastest ever' Sql slammer took advantage of a vulnerability in SQL Server, a piece of Microsoft software that many PC's use to access information stored on websit...