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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."
Welcome to the Dungeon :430791,443248,280530.
(c) 1986 Basit & Amjad (pvt) Ltd.
BRAIN COMPUTER SERVICES
730 NIZAB BLOCK ALLAMA IQBAL TOWN
LAHORE-PAKISTAN
PHONE
Beware of this VIRUS....
Contact us for vaccination.
I wonder if anyone ever tried to look up these guys. Kind of blatent calling card if you ask me.
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
... how Quantum Viruses would be.
I love humanity, it is people I hate
... it spread by floppy disks, which is a far cry from the network-aware worms of today.
While a network virus could reach around the globe in a matter of seconds, floppy disk viruses were just as bad before networks and CDs became common. Not only did you have to scan your own hard drive, but each and every floppy disk if you didn't know where the virus came from. You often had to practice "safe computing" by asking if the floppy disk was scanned before you use it on your own machine.
When one media pundit was being subjected to derision because of his outlandish idea that viruses might be spread by email.
...far cry from the network-aware worms of today... And so the worms of yesteryear were NOT network-aware, and still 'worms' huh?
An old-timer with old-timey ideas.
I've owned machines running DOS 5.0, Windows 3.0, 3.1, OS/2 2.1, OS/2 2.11, Windows 2k Server, Windows XP, Solaris 2.4, Solaris 2.5, Solaris 2.5.1, Solaris 2.6, IRIX 6.2, IRIX 6.5, NeXTSTEP 2.x, NeXTStep 3.3, OpenStep 4.2, OpenBSD 2.{5,6,7,8}, Linux TAMU, Slackware 1.0 (and a bunch of subsequent versions).
Do you know what?
I have never had a virus of any kind on any of those machines.
The best anti-virus protection is inbetween your ears.
Ironically, my IRIX machine was remote rooted, and i had a DOS successfully launched against my Solaris 2.6 machine (sunkill.. made telmod eat cpu/ram in kernel time).
My windows machines have comparatively been trouble free.
What the hell do you people do where your machines are always screwed up with malware on them? Do you not even bother to think about the consequences of your actions?
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
Thanks to the Blaster virus, I'm getting married in 2 days.
I don't get it. what does blaster have to do with you getting married?
Push Button, Receive Bacon
I'm upgrading my personal mailserver from RedHat 7.2 (now no longer supported by Progeny, alas) tonight to CentOS 4.2. For about 1/2 hour, my new mail server's antivirus wasn't set up, even though email service was on.
I was SHOCKED at how many viruses came in - like 40, more than 1 per minute! That means that this mail server was getting some 1,500 crap emails for me every day.
Unbelievable...
I've just gotten used to never seeing viruses in my email - it's an incredible crapflood of this stuff out there.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
My first virus came off a "commercial" 5.25" floppy that I paided for. (go figure!) This was back in the late 1980's or early 1990's I believe. Sucked big time. ;)
Dana
Life was hell, then I discovered Linux...
Normally I would have used my mod points to mod you down as flamebait, but instead I think I'll reply.
I happen to work for Symantec. I think we create great products. Yes, they have bugs. Sometimes they're bad bugs. Guess what - every piece of software installed on your PC has bugs. We fix them very quickly when it happens. We do a thing called "Rapid Response" and we turn around a patch as quickly as humanly possible. I've participated in one "Rapid Response", so yes, I do know what I'm talking about. Symantec is also a fantastic place to work. We have great people (both from a technical and human side). We provide services people need/want. So yes, I guess we do have a good business model.
We *do not* create these viruses. I find it amusing that the conspiracy theorists out there like to latch on to that idea. I love how it's hip and trendy to bash Microsoft, Apple, Symantec et al around here. I'm not aware of any Symantec employees arrested for creating any of the major viruses or worms that have spread lately. Maybe you know something you'd like to share with the rest of the class?
(My opinions do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.)
... when some of the virus were funny, like this one that was playing the "Hitchcock Presents" theme once in a while. Or that other one that was beeping each time the Enter key was pressed. This was a time where a TSR was not some obnoxious prick trying to sell you phony mortgage plans.
Nowadays the virus are mostly mail-related, so you get annoyed by other people's virus all the time. Sad.
lucm, indeed.
And theres me thinking the SCA bootblock virus from the SCA in 87 was a trendsetter, but obviously beaten by the apple II stuff. It certainly was a nice piece of code for 4k, funky scrolling text on a red bar set on a black background with the words "Something wonderful has happened" fading up and the usual bootloader. I remember the first time seeing this and someone explaining to me how it replicated, and thinking it was a wind up. Then realizing it was not. The fact they stuffed this into 4k was at the time something of a eye opener and I think help spark the 4k demo scene on the amiga (that and that is the size of the bootsector on a amiga floppy)
The only real problem with it was commercial games used the 4k bootsector on the floppy to bootstrap their copy protected loaders in, and it used to overwrite these.
We managed to keep the spread down to a minimum by use of a cunning device known as a "write protect tab". That is once we had virus checked a disk, it was write protected and that was that, since joe average could not afford a hard disk back then and the amiga ran out of its roms anything memory resident just went when the power was pulled...
tripwire. I remember a PC project at a bank that used it to check the system daily.
Also remember the times when it was universally accepted that a virus could only spread via bootblocks and programs, and not via datafiles. Datafiles were not code so they never could get executed.
This was first defeated by our friends at M$ who decided it was a good idea to have a macrolanguage in wordprocessor documents.
OK, we had to adjust the abovementioned truth only a little bit, because such a document really is a program. Word macroviruses became very widespread.
But the real surprise was when it turned out that even datafiles for programs which did not have any executable features at all could spread viruses...
.. is one of the most memorable occurances in virus history. An author wrote a book on viruses - the title of which shall remain nameless - and helpfully included the source code to an actual virus. Which led to dozens of variants appearing virtually overnight. Not the smartest thing to do.
No one seriously believes Symantec is capable of making virusses. Not competent enough to even build a virusscanner that doesn't rely on internet explorer for its user interface (except, interestingly enough, the corporate edition, which isn't sold to noobs; not that it's perfect, it's a bitch to setup and maintain in just the way you want). And what's with the skins? You've got your priorities right there, make it look pretty and screw up user's expectations of the user interface.
I've tried many virusscanners and security products and Symantec products have consistently offered the worst experience in terms of ease of use, expert use, and even just plain uninstalling. I wouldn't recommend them to anyone.
Now, that may bruise your ego, but if it does, I suggest you apply for a management position. Your products suck, do something about it, or just put on blinders and keep humming "lalala I can't hear you".
Have you even tried your competitors' software? Even AVG's free edition anti-virus kicks your butt, likewist for sygate's free personal firewall..
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
The employee concerned was never caught although he sometimes would admit to it a loong time later.
See my journal, I write things there
There were far more than 40 viruses for Mac OS in the late 80's. I believe I used Virex, having to clean up one of my room mate's computers. Then there were the cross platform word Macro viruses.
Thankfully, Mac tightened up its security in the move to OS X. Windows tightened up security in.....?
Ok, I give up, why you?