Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

The Computer Virus Turns 25 in July

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the thats-silver-right dept.

bl8n8r writes "In July of 1982, an infected Apple II propogated the first computer virus onto a 5-1/4" floppy. The virus, which did little more than annoy the user, Elk Cloner, was authored in Pittsburgh by a 15-year-old high school student, Rich Skrenta. The virus replicated by monitoring floppy disk activity and writing itself to the floppy when it was accessed. Skrenta describes the virus as "It was a practical joke combined with a hack. A wonderful hack." Remember, he was a 9th grader when he did this."

5 of 194 comments (clear)

  1. Um no. it wasn't by Lumpy · · Score: 3, Informative

    1981 - Apple Viruses 1, 2, and 3 are some of the first viruses "in the wild," or in the public domain. Found on the Apple II operating system, the viruses spread through Texas A&M via pirated computer games.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  2. Answering my own question, sort of by InvisblePinkUnicorn · · Score: 5, Informative

    Of the "ten most destructive PC viruses of all time":

    CIH, by Chen Ing Hau, who "attended a university" at the time of release ~1998.
    Melissa virus, by David L. Smith, age 31 in 1999
    ILOVEYOU, by university student for thesis, 2000
    Code Red, author unknown?
    SQL Slammer, 2003, by a 21-22 year old
    Blaster, 2003, variant by an 18 year old
    Sobig, possibly by 30 year old Ruslan Ibragimov?
    Bagle, author unknown?
    MyDoom, unknown
    Sasser, by 17 year old

    Not much to go on.

  3. still infecting...in emulators by joshuac · · Score: 3, Informative

    Not enough time right now to go into depth, but I sorting through a collection of 5.25" Apple images, I saw this message popup on one of the emulators "bootup". Had no idea what it was and didn't bother looking too far in depth into it. This was back in 2006, when I was organizing my collection of stuff I had written as a kid, random public domain disks I had copies, of, random things I had made copies of as a kid from my gradeschool computer lab, etc...in the process, plenty of "catalog" commands ran (this is how it spreads, he has the 6502 source http://www.skrenta.com/cloner/clone-src.txt on his website and a few more items about it there), plenty of disks "swapped" out of virtual floppy drives, so I'm sure the infection is well spread.

    Maybe I'll keep it around as a living pet in my emulator :)

  4. Re:Imagine his wealth... by Jansingal · · Score: 3, Informative

    Why does this article not mention Fred Cohen, who found the first virus?

  5. Re:Has this been done before? by Phroggy · · Score: 3, Informative

    So how do you screencap a BSOD? Using an emulator, such as VirtualPC.
    --
    $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
    $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;