Creator of first PC virus admits to guilt

The hacker who created the world’s first major computer virus has admitted his guilt, 20 years after his malware attacked millions of machines worldwide.

Onel de Guzman (pictured), from the Philippines, said he released the Love Bug virus to steal people’s passwords so he could access the internet without paying.

He confessed while being interviewed for

Com, a forthcoming book on the growth of hacking (pre-order on Amazon: www.snipca.com/34756).

The virus, released on 4 May 2000, infected computers when the victim opened an email attachment titled “LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU”. It contained code that stole passwords and sent copies of itself to the victim’s Microsoft Outlook contacts.

Within 24 hours, it had infected 45 million machines around the world, and overwhelmed organisations’ email systems, causing disruption running into billions of pounds. The UK Parliament shut its email network for several hours to protect itself.

Police in the Philippines traced the virus to an email address registered to an apartment in Manila.

They identified Mr de

Guzman, then a computer science student, as the lead suspect. However, he wasn’t prosecuted because there was no law in the country covering computer hacking.

Geoff White, the book’s author, spoke to Mr de Guzman after tracking him down at a phone-repair shop he runs in Manila. Now 44, he said he was surprised that Love Bug spread so quickly, and regrets the infamy it brought him.