Its core mechanism was essentially the same as the ILOVEYOU worm of 2000 - although running on mainframes rather than PCs, spreading over a different network, and scripted using REXX rather than VBScript.
However, in practice this advice is not enough – "known trusted sources" were the senders of executable programs creating mischief and mayhem as early as 1987 (with the mainframe-based Christmas Tree EXEC), so since the ILOVEYOU and Anna Kournikova worms of 2000 and 2001 email systems have increasingly added layers of protection to prevent potential malware – and now many block certain types of attachments.
In May 2004 the ILOVEYOU virus showed how the Windows Address Book could be part of an exploit to spread malicious software by accessing and sending email to a user's contacts.
ILOVEYOU |