BubbleBoy virus

An e-mail virus launched in November 1999 that affected English and Spanish versions of Microsoft Outlook running with Windows 98 or 2000 and Internet Explorer 5. It did not do any harm, but sent out an e-mail to everyone in the address list, which may have caused a mail storm in certain networks. The virus took advantage of a loophole in Internet Explorer 5 that allows an HTML page or an HTML e-mail message to write files without passing through the required authorization (ActiveX authorization).

BubbleBoy was a watershed event because it was the first time an e-mail message itself, not an e-mail attachment, was able to execute in the client machine. Adding HTML e-mail to mail readers makes e-mail look just like a Web page, but it becomes subject to virus attacks, because HTML pages can embed or point to Java, JavaScript and ActiveX code, all of which is executable. Our never-ending fixation with making dull text pages glitter and sparkle has created the potential for greater damage, because e-mail is so ubiquitous. See e-mail virus.