Love Letter worm
E701335
The Love Letter worm was a notorious computer virus from 2000 that spread rapidly via email by masquerading as a love letter, causing widespread damage to systems worldwide.
All labels observed (3)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| VBS.LoveLetter | 2 |
| Love Bug virus | 1 |
| Love Letter worm canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T7895081 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Love Letter worm Context triple: [ILOVEYOU worm, alsoKnownAs, Love Letter worm]
-
A.
Chain Letter
"Chain Letter" is a 2010 horror-thriller film about a deadly curse spread via chain messages, featuring Nikki Reed among its main cast.
-
B.
Locky
Locky is the widely used nickname of Darren Lockyer, one of Australia's most celebrated rugby league players and long-time Brisbane Broncos and Queensland Maroons star.
-
C.
Grey Worm
Grey Worm is a disciplined and fiercely loyal commander of the Unsullied, serving Daenerys Targaryen in the world of A Song of Ice and Fire.
-
D.
The Virus
"The Virus" is a 1982 political thriller novel by British author Stanley Johnson that imagines a deadly global pandemic and the governmental response to it.
-
E.
Bootle
Bootle is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton in Merseyside, England, situated just north of Liverpool and historically known for its docks and industrial heritage.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Love Letter worm Target entity description: The Love Letter worm was a notorious computer virus from 2000 that spread rapidly via email by masquerading as a love letter, causing widespread damage to systems worldwide.
-
A.
Chain Letter
"Chain Letter" is a 2010 horror-thriller film about a deadly curse spread via chain messages, featuring Nikki Reed among its main cast.
-
B.
Locky
Locky is the widely used nickname of Darren Lockyer, one of Australia's most celebrated rugby league players and long-time Brisbane Broncos and Queensland Maroons star.
-
C.
Grey Worm
Grey Worm is a disciplined and fiercely loyal commander of the Unsullied, serving Daenerys Targaryen in the world of A Song of Ice and Fire.
-
D.
The Virus
"The Virus" is a 1982 political thriller novel by British author Stanley Johnson that imagines a deadly global pandemic and the governmental response to it.
-
E.
Bootle
Bootle is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton in Merseyside, England, situated just north of Liverpool and historically known for its docks and industrial heritage.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (49)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
computer worm
ⓘ
email worm ⓘ |
| affectedOrganizations |
government agencies
ⓘ
home users ⓘ large corporations ⓘ small businesses ⓘ |
| alsoKnownAs |
ILOVEYOU
ⓘ
linked to:
ILOVEYOU worm
Love Bug ⓘ LoveLetter ⓘ VBS.LoveLetter ⓘ
linked to:
Love Letter worm
|
| category | 2000s malware outbreak ⓘ |
| damageEstimateUSD | 5000000000 ⓘ |
| emailAttachmentName | LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs ⓘ |
| emailSubjectLine |
ILOVEYOU
ⓘ
linked to:
ILOVEYOU worm
|
| executionRequirement | user opening the malicious email attachment ⓘ |
| exploitedSoftware |
Microsoft Outlook address book
ⓘ
linked to:
Outlook Contacts
|
| fileExtension | .vbs ⓘ |
| firstDetectedInCountry | Philippines ⓘ |
| firstDetectedOn | 2000-05-04 ⓘ |
| inspiredSecurityResponse |
increased user education about phishing and malicious attachments
ⓘ
stricter email attachment filtering policies ⓘ |
| legalAftermath | led to calls for stronger cybercrime legislation in the Philippines ⓘ |
| notableCharacteristic | used social engineering by masquerading as a love letter ⓘ |
| notableImpact |
one of the fastest-spreading email worms in history at the time
ⓘ
prompted organizations to shut down email systems temporarily ⓘ raised global awareness of email-borne malware threats ⓘ |
| operatingSystemTargeted |
Microsoft Windows
ⓘ
linked to:
Windows
|
| payload |
downloading additional malware
ⓘ
modifying registry settings ⓘ overwriting files with certain extensions ⓘ |
| propagationMethod |
copying itself to shared network drives
ⓘ
mass-mailing itself to contacts in Microsoft Outlook address book ⓘ |
| spreadVia |
Internet Relay Chat
ⓘ
linked to:
IRC
email ⓘ file sharing ⓘ |
| targetedFileExtensions |
.css
ⓘ
.hta ⓘ .jpeg ⓘ .jpg ⓘ .js ⓘ .jse ⓘ .mp2 ⓘ .mp3 ⓘ .sct ⓘ .vbe ⓘ .vbs ⓘ .wsh ⓘ |
| timeToGlobalSpread | approximately one day ⓘ |
| writtenIn | VBScript ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Love Letter worm Description of subject: The Love Letter worm was a notorious computer virus from 2000 that spread rapidly via email by masquerading as a love letter, causing widespread damage to systems worldwide.
Referenced by (4)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
linked to: Love Letter worm
linked to: Love Letter worm
linked to: Love Letter worm