"I Love You could very possibly be a cruel lie for many computer users this Valentine's Day," said Niraj Kaushik, country manager of Trend Micro India.

"We warn users to be wary of seemingly affectionate sentiments so as not to fall prey to malicious computer attacks," Kaushik said.

He said "I Love You" e-mails may contain an attachment called "LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.txt.vbs" and when opened the virus would scan the computer's Outlook addresses and spread the virus to everyone on the address list.

"The quick-spreading virus can paralyse corporate mail servers and slow network traffic to a crawl," he said.

Late last month Mydoom.A worm virus infected up to one million computers worldwide in just a few days, clogging the Internet and causing huge delays in the delivery of emails.

"Trend Micro also warns users not to overestimate their own charm and eagerly open attachments entitled 'WIN.SCR' or 'I Love You !!!.SCR,' which spreads through the MSN Messenger version," a company statement said.

SPACE.WIRE