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."

Comments

first PC virus

[dotpavan]

quoting wikipedia: "A program called "Elk Cloner" is credited with being the first computer virus to appear "in the wild" -- that is, outside the single computer or lab where it was created. Written in 1982 by Rich Skrenta, it attached itself to the Apple DOS 3.3 operating system and spread by floppy disk."

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."

Re:first PC virus

[glowworm]

And... I believe the first network aware self propogating worm was the Morris worm (1998/11/02) meant to gague the size of the internet.

I believe the third worm and the first on-purpose malicious network worm was Wank from October 1989. It attacked VAX machines running on DECNet, changing passwords and lol phoning all the people who had accounts to annoy them ;). Cert Wank Advisory CA-1989-04 ;)

Earlier in 1988 there was the hi.com worm, but that was just a zombie. It was meant to send a Merry Christmas message to all infected users on 25 December 1988 ;)


W O R M A G A I N S T N U C L E A R K I L L E R S
Your System Has Been Officially WANKed
You talk of times of peace for all, and then prepare for war.

Someone might know of an earlier malicious network aware worm, but this is the first one I know of.

Re:Message in the virus?

[dotpavan]

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

Worm verses Virus

[Beave]

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 :)