20 years later, the creator of the destructive virus ILOVEYOU was found

BBC News journalist Jeff White managed to find the creator of the virus ILOVEYOU, which in 2000 attacked millions of PCs running Windows. This was reported by PC Gamer on May 5. He said that he found the culprit in Manila, Philippines, in one of the workshops specializing in mobile phone repairs. The man's name is Onel de Guzmán and is now 44. He claims that he did not initially plan to cause billions of dollars in damage at all, but only wanted to access the Internet by targeting users in his area. The programmer said that he created ILOVEYOU on the basis of his previous development, but added the possibility to send himself to contacts of the Outlook user. His lawyer stated that the defendant was not even aware of the consequences of his actions. The man admitted that he initially sent the virus to a Singapore resident and then went for a drink with a friend. He realized he had unleashed global chaos after hearing from his mother about a kind of hacker being sought by Manila police. We remind that according to some estimates ILOVEYOU caused damage by about $10 billion, and it caused a serious blow to the economy. This virus was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the most destructive computer virus in the world.