The First Computer Viruses
Most historians agree that the first virus to replicate from PC to PC was "Brain". The story goes that Basit and Amjaad Farooq Alvi, owners of a store called Brain Computer Services, wrote the boot sector virus to stealthily leave their contact information on infected computers. Basit and Amjaad claimed they wrote the code to ascertain the extent of software piracy in Pakistan (they were, after all, software vendors). But Brain soon leaked through the Pakistani borders and quite harmlessly infected computers worldwide. The first virus internet security programs were written soon thereafter.
Hackers and Computer Security
Written by Cornell University Ph.D. student Robert Morris in 1988, a self-replicating program called "the Internet Worm" quickly writhed its way onto VAX and Sun systems throughout the country. Though Morris had intended for his creation to spread from computer to computer without causing any data security damage or leaving a trace, his code was flawed. The Internet Worm replicated so many times and sucked up so many CPU cycles that it rendered its computer hosts useless, effectively bringing the Internet to its knees. Though the worm left no scars on its hosts after it was removed, the United States General Accounting Office predicted that somewhere between $100,000 and $10,000,000 was lost in terms of cumulative productivity between all of the 6,000 systems infected nationwide.
Hackers and Computer Security
The Internet Worm written by Robert Morris in 1988 was a self-replicating program that spread from one machine to another. When Morris realized how much internet security havoc his worm was wreaking, he tried to send anonymous messages on how to disinfect the beast over the same network on which he unleashed the worm. Unfortunately, machines were so catatonic that the remedy never went anywhere. The Internet Worm attracted a great deal of media attention and Morris was eventually sentenced to three years of probation and 400 hours of community service, and fined $10,050. By the way, Morris was the son of the chief scientist at the National Security Center -- part of the NSA.
Hackers and Computer Security
In 1992, information security and data security hysteria swept over the planet as newspapers, magazines, and television networks proclaimed that on March 6, the birth date of Renaissance artist Michelangelo, up to one quarter of American hard drives would be completely erased. The media frenzy started through a coincidence. In January of 1992 one computer manufacturer claimed it had inadvertently distributed 500 PCs carrying the virus while another computer company issued a press release stating that from that point on it would bundle antivirus software with every PC it sold. The two events were completely unrelated, but apparently it was a slow news day and reporters tried to make a story out of it. By the time March 5 rolled around, the fever pitch had reached Y2K proportions. Even the respectable Wall Street Journal carried the headline "Deadly Virus Set to Wreak Havoc Tomorrow." When March 6 came, the virus struck only about 10,000 computers.
Computer Viruses
Another famous virus that fired up the media was Melissa, a Word macro virus. When people received the host Word document via email and opened it, the virus sent a copy of itself to the first 50 people in the victim´s address book. Named after a topless dancer in Florida, the Melissa virus crashed the information security of email servers at corporations and governments in different spots around the world. The Computer Emergency Response Team, set up after Robert Morris let loose his worm in 1988, estimated that the virus hit 100,000 computers in its first weekend.
Computer Viruses
By almost any measure, the so-called Love Bug virus was the most damaging and costly internet security disaster ever. According to Reuters the bug cost the world $15 billion in lost productivity. The Love Bug would mail itself to everyone in your Outlook address book. Moreover, it would gobble up certain media files stored on your hard drive. One German newspaper tragically lost 2,000 pictures from its archive. The perpetrator turned out to be a 23-year-old Filipino computer science student who more or less plagiarized all of his code. Because of a lack of laws in the Philippines covering computer crimes, he pretty much got away with his crime.
Computer Viruses
In November of 1987, the Lehigh virus was discovered at Lehigh University in the U.S. It was the first "memory resident file infector". A file-infecting virus attacks executable files. It gets control when the file is opened. The Lehigh virus attacked a file called COMMAND.COM. When the file was run (usually by booting from an infected disk), the virus stayed in the resident memory. Viruses can be stopped by good internet security software and personal firewall software.
Computer Viruses
In November of 1987, the Lehigh virus was discovered at Lehigh University in the U.S. It was the first "memory resident file infector". A file-infecting virus attacks executable files. It gets control when the file is opened. The Lehigh virus attacked a file called COMMAND.COM. When the file was run (usually by booting from an infected disk), the virus stayed in the resident memory. Viruses can be stopped by good internet security software and personal firewall software.
Computer Viruses
December, 1987 saw the Jerusalem virus appear at Hebrew University in Israel. It was also a memory resident file infector. It was the first virus that contained a bug that caused it to re-infect already infected programs. Viruses can be stopped by good internet security software and personal firewall software.
Computer Viruses
March 1988 saw an ironic milestone in the development of internet security software when the first anti-virus virus was written. It was designed to detect and remove the Brain virus and immunized disks against the "Brain" infection.
Computer Viruses
In 1995 internet security software companies worried nobody would need them anymore because of Windows 95, which avoided the usual viruses. The most common viruses were still boot viruses that worked on DOS, but wouldn't replicate on Windows 95. But, later in 1995, macro viruses appeared. These viruses worked in the MS-Word environment, not DOS. The anti-virus industry was caught off-guard, but was happy at the same time.
Computer Viruses
In mid-July 2001, two variants of the Code Red worm began spreading through the Internet. Code Red operated in three stages -- scanning, flooding and sleeping. During the scanning phase, the worm searched for vulnerable computers and ran damaging computer code on them. Next, in the flooding phase, the worm sent bogus data packets to the White House Web site. The White House, however, changed their Web site's IP address and was therefore able to maintain computer security. Experts believed the worm's final sleep mode could last indefinitely, and that even infected machines would not pose a threat to the Internet. The worm also replaced Web site text with the phrase "hacked by Chinese." At its peak, the worm infected 2,000 machines every minute, and infected 359,000 machines and cost $1.2 billion. Because of a Code Red warning many people were able to protect their machines.
Computer Viruses
In October 2002, the Bugbear virus infected users running Windows via a security hole in Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Outlook Express and Internet Explorer. The virus copied itself to the hard drive and on to other computers that shared a network. The virus copied the passwords and credit card numbers a user typed. Then, it could send a file with the personal information to several e-mail addresses. In its first week, 320,000 infected e-mails were sent. Viruses can be stopped by good internet security software and personal firewall software.
Computer Viruses
After running its course in 2002, in 2003, Bugbear reappeared, but in a far more damaging strain. In 24 hours the newer version, Bugbear.B, caused the same damage that it had taken the previous Bugbear three days to cause. Bugbear.B claimed its new victims quickly because a flaw in Microsoft Outlook meant the program automatically opened e-mail attachments. The person or persons responsible for the virus have not yet been caught. Make sure your email security software does not automatically open attachments, and don't open them yourself unless you are absolutely certain they are safe.
