Anna Kournikova Worm

The Anna Kournikova worm was released in 2001 and, whilst it was not aimed at causing data loss, it did cause embarrassment and disruption for many personal and business users. The worm spread by email with an attachment claiming to be a picture of Anna Kournikova, which many recipients struggled to resist. Opening the bogus attachment simply sent copies of the worm by email to all addresses found in the recipient's address book in Microsoft Outlook.

The virus inevitably resulted in a number of copycat variants. Whilst most worm creators have never been identified, a 21-year-old Dutchman, Jan de Wit, admitted to unleashing the Anna Kournikova worm.