ILOVEYOU Macro Virus
May 4, 2000

Much media attention has been given to a new, wide spread virus which is currently being transmitted through email. The virus in question comes in a message from someone you know with the subject ILOVEYOU —all capital letters, no spaces. If opened on a machine running a Windows operating system, the virus will replace all .jpg and MP3 files on the hard drive with a copy of itself as well as resending itself to every email address in the recipient's address book.

We first became aware of this message shortly after 9:00 this morning and by 9:30 we had implemented filters to prevent its spread to SOVERNET customers. The filters will reject any message with the following subject line:

    Subject: ILOVEYOU

If you have tried to send a legitimate message with this subject line after 9:30 this morning, it will have been filtered. Resending the message with a different subject line will ensure its delivery. If you received a message with this subject line prior to the implementation of our filters, you will want to delete the message without opening it.

Updates on this and other less publicized viruses which we filter can be found on our Virus Filters page.