However, it appears from research conducted by IDC that if a Love Bug style virus were to occur on Valentine’s Day next week the chaos could recur. The research found that 37% of users across the UK would still open an e-mail headed ‘I love you’ on Valentine’s Day if it appears to come from a recognised source. 11% of those surveyed had received the virus last year.
In light of the billions of dollars worth of damage caused to businesses world wide by the Love Bug virus last year, mainly in lost productivity, many businesses will have taken steps to try to prevent such damage occurring again and will be on the look out for new viruses. However, it is important that the users are also alert to the dangers. As Rob Hailstone, an analyst at the IDC said:
“Despite all the publicity the Love Bug virus created last year, we discovered that users are the weakest link in a corporate defence against malicious code. They can spread viruses in a matter of seconds.”
There are a number of headings often used by virus writers that were also covered by the research. The research found that on any day of the year, users would open an e-mail that appeared to be from someone they know if they had the following subject headings: Great joke (54%), Look at this (50%), Re: Message (46%), No Title (40%) or Special Offer (39%).