Slashdot Mirror
20 Years of Computer Viruses
Tuxedo Jack writes "The Register reports that twenty years ago today (19 January 1986), the first computer virus, Brain, was discovered. By modern standards, this was a minor virus, and it spread by floppy disks, which is a far cry from the network-aware worms of today. Still, though, it was the first noted virus, and we've had twenty years of pain and annoyance from it and its successors. Happy birthday, Brain, you and all your little virus friends - just know we're doing our damndest to keep you from having more."
Not the first virus. It's the first PC virus, meaning IBM PC running DOS.
And, "The first PC virus was a boot sector virus called (c)Brain, created in 1986 by two brothers, Basit and Amjad Farooq Alvi, operating out of Lahore, Pakistan. The brothers reportedly created the virus to deter pirated copies of software they had written."
people did take them seriously, so seriously that they were interviewed by TIME, for more story, over to this link, but alas I think it was short-lived.. now they are kinda reduced to ISP and stuff
I've had and maintained Windows boxes fairly constantly for the last 15 years, and to date the only Windows virus I've had problems with was CIH (aka Chernobyl). That was pretty bad though, a completely busted hard drive.
The only other virus to penetrate my defences was stoned.angelina, back in the DOS days. Don't think I even had a virus scanner back then.
It uses to be that "worm" != "virus". Now days, it seems, many people call just about everything a "virus", when in fact, the "more proper definition" would be worm. Or, maybe I'm just being an old fart about this. It's pretty simple. If it is a _standalone_ program meant to infect machines, then it would be considered a "worm". If the malicous program where to "infect" other programs (say - via .exe, .com infector or MBR), it's a "virus".
That is, a "virus" will actually "attach" itself to a existing program (old com/exe infectors for eaxmple) or load themselves into the MBR/boot records. Then again, I see very obvious "trojans" get called "viruses!!!" all the time as well. Oh well :)
I don't think that's true, many old viruses used to operate mainly in the boot sector, and as such were infecting and spreading at a level beneath the OS (and beneath filesystems, for that)
I don't care what kind of disk you're booting, it has an MBR, and there might be a virus in it...
-bugg
The method of replication has little to do with if it's a "virus" or not. By a traditional sense, most "virii" we see now days are actually worms. I just posted about traditional definitions a minute ago. Here's what ole wikipeia has to say: "In computer security technology, a virus is a self-replicating program that spreads by inserting copies of itself into other executable code or documents. A computer virus behaves in a way similar to a biological virus, which spreads by inserting itself into living cells. Extending the analogy, the insertion of a virus into the program is termed as an infection, and the infected file (or executable code that is not part of a file) is called a host. Viruses are one of the several types of malicious software or malware. In a common parlance, the term virus is often extended to refer to worms, trojan horses and other sorts of malware, however, this can confuse computer users, since viruses in the narrow sense of the word are less common than they used to be, compared to other forms of malware." Not the "inserting copies of itself _into other executable code". How it replicates is not what makes it a virus. User interaction or not, has nothing to do with it.
- Dewdney, A. K.; Computer Recreations - In the game called Core
War hostile programs engage in a battle of bits; Scientific American; Mar 1984.
- Dewdney, A. K.; Computer Recreations - A Core War bestiary of
viruses, worms and other threats to computer memories; Scientific
American; Mar 1985.
I've always believed that were it not for these Scientific American articles, it would have taken a lot longer for viruses to become prevalent. These articles piqued the interest of computer users (then synonymous with programmers) everywhere. For example, here's a 1994 comp.sys.apple2 post I just found of someone who was seduced by the articles into writing viruses.This is year 10 of me using Windows virus free.
Plus 4 years of DOS before that.
I read the first article about the theoretical possibility of a PC virus in either 1984 or '85, at this time most people scoffed at it, simply refusing to believe it was possible.
.com/.exe etc) and saved this to a text file on a bootable floppy, which was then marked read-only.
:-(
Anyway, having written quite a bit of asm code, I had no problems accepting the possibility, so for fun I decided to write a sort of vaccine:
Simply a small program that took a digitial signature of every executable piece of code (boot blocks,
Afterwards I could simply put in this floppy and reboot, whereupon the same program would compare the current signatures with those saved on the floppy.
The problem was to keep the original list updated each time I wrote a new program.
Terje
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"
These two Brothers who created this virus are now millionries, have built Pakistan's largest ISP Brain Net and are also WLL service providers. See.. http://brain.net.pk/
This is the first computer virus. From 1975. With source code.
On meeting the guy, did you chuck him in the nearest river? Because that would have been the only meeting that loon would have been a good time for me. The stoned virus very nearly wiped out my A-Level computing project (UK exams taken at 18) and nearly got me banned from the lab as well. Had I not had an ST with some fairly nice sector copying programs, I would have lost everything with a week to go, and so my University chance would have been blown. And yeah backups, but I was still learning and you've got to remember that this virus stuff was still relatively new at the time (1989).
Cretins who write these things aren't being cool, they're just sociopathic idiots and should be treated as such.
Cheers,
Ian
It's the current logo for "computer/Internet virus/WORM".
Furry cows moo and decompress.
it spread by floppy disks, which is a far cry from the network-aware worms of today.
"The first implementation of a worm was by two researchers at Xerox PARC in 1978. The authors, John Shoch and Jon Hupp, originally designed the worm to find idle processors on the network and assign them tasks, sharing the processing and so improving the whole network efficiency."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_worm
Not only was it a "network aware" worm, but also a rootkit and a crude "grid" implementation.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
No, these days you create rubbish products and live off your brand name.
I uninstalled your anti-virus software many moons ago. One day, many moons later, I saw network traffic when there should have been none. This traffic (2mb an hour - nearly 1.5gb a month) was coming from one of your updating applications that had not been uninstalled properly. Thanks for that. Thanks for the wasted time and the wasted bandwidth.
I could go on about the hours your software takes to scan my little hard drive. But I won't.
I could go on about the weekly reboots needed to update definitions. But I won't.
I could go on about the alternatives to your crappy software but I think everyone (who doesn't shop in PC World) already knows the score there.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
Corporate version also needs IE. I've rolled out client 10 two days ago and half the machines were refused for not having an up-to-date IE.
home