From here on viruses went, well, viral and dominated the headlines. The Melissa and ILOVEYOU viruses infected tens of millions of PCs, causing email systems around the globe to fail, all with little strategic objective or clear financial motivation. These threats led to the development of antivirus technology in order to spot the signature of the virus and prevent it from executing. Equally as important, these threats also played a huge role in driving the awareness of computer users of the risks of reading emails from untrusted sources and opening their attachments. This realization was not lost on companies, as it became clear that if viruses were to spread from corporate email accounts, questions about the security and integrity of the company could be brought into the public eye.
