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PC Virus Turns 25
Batblue writes "Happy anniversary Basit and Amjad! Twenty-five years ago this month (CT: Warning, intrusive interstitial ad), the Alvi brothers of Lahore, Pakistan, gave the world the Brain Virus, the first bit of malware capable of infecting a DOS-based PC. Back in those relatively innocent times, the brothers actually embedded their real names and business address in the code and later told Time magazine they had written the virus to protect their medical software from piracy. Who knows what they were really thinking, but by all accounts the Brain Virus was relatively harmless. Twenty-five years later, most malware is anything but benign and cyber criminals pull off exploits the Alvi brothers never envisioned."
http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm And you'll be fine with that link. Btw, what better way to celebrate virii than an add-infected site.
Really? Attack Toolkits are a new worry? I mean, I know they consulted a guy from Symantec for the article, but even so...
Attack Toolkits have been in existence for a long time, even if you only count the newer "hosted" solutions.
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of some of the first PC viruses, Slashdot linked to a site where you can get some of the most up to date malware, adware and other infections!?
How festive!
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
I'd always been told the first viruses appeared on campuses where Mr McAffee promptly turned up offering solutions.
I remember my screen said,
"Something wonderful is happening"
.
.
.
"Your Amiga has come alive"
Unfortunately the DOS was flaky enough as it was. The virus unintentionally ruined disks.
No one believed me at first- the message didn't come up again for a couple more weeks so they thought i was crazy.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
The solution to this problem has been known for a very long time... it's the principle of least privilege.
We've had 25 years to wise up and stop using a "default permit" based system and still haven't done so.
Here's a summary of the situation, for those who want to help push things in the right direction.
"Twenty-five years later, most malware is anything but benign and cyber criminals pull off exploits the Alvi brothers never envisioned."
Run your OS from a read-only device, implement strict separation between code and data. Never download-and-run code from arbitrary sites over the Internet ..
Remember that?
Seems like a millennium now.
I sat and and disinfected stacks of floppies.. one by one.
Back then Antivirus was new and Mcafee was the top dog.
What the heck happened to Mcafee? Ugh.
I convinced the management of my organization to dump Mcafee and switch to VIPRE enterprise. 600+ computers
Mcafee did jack squat when real malware came through. Conficker did a thorough pounding of our network while Maccoffee rolled over and played dead.
This was certainly not the first personal computer virus, as I recall there was a virus running rampant on the Apple II computers in my high school running Apple's DOS 3.3 before this. The virus was one of the things that got them to switch everyone over to using the spiffy new ProDOS instead.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
The first time I remember seeing anti-virus software was on a 1988 Mac Plus (system 6). The software was called "Vaccine"...I remember the icon of it loading at boot up time looked like an hypodermic needle. Of course that was before Apple adopted BSD as the basis for OS X. Security has improved significantly since then.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
Warning, intrusive interstitial ad
What ad?
Opera & Javascript blocking FTW
if the webpage has such an "intrusive interstitial ad" that you felt you had to protect the public with your warning, perhaps it would've been better to NOT LINK TO THE SHITTY FUCKING WEBSITE IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Boot Sector viruses go back a lot further then 25 years. Anyone remember SCORES? I have a old Bernoulli drive at home formated in HFS that contains examples of some 20 Classic Mac OS 6.07 viruses. Before that there were a very few active mainframe based virus programs. We ran into one in the late 70s on a still functional IBM OS/360. This one was cute rather then harmful. It spelled out "HI" in the binary display lights on the front faceplate of the mainframe. As I recall Managment was none to happy, but the operators thought it a hoot.
...Windows, the oldest and most successful PC virus, became 25 in November!
I will always have fond memories of screwing with our computer class teacher with fake "Your PC is now Stoned!" viruses using DOS autoexec.bat files.. Those were the days :]
... It's that people are still idiots enough to get them *today*, after (over) 25 years of virus history.
After seeing a virus once (on someone else's machine even!) I thought, "hey, that's just not acceptable", and made sure to only run trustworthy code on my own machines in the future.
Everybody else? As far as I can tell, they're all fine with getting viruses. They refuse to change their behavior in the face of overwhelming evidence that its dangerous.
Viruses exist now in 2011 because people have refused to learn a damn thing.
"Twenty-five years later, most malware is anything but benign and cyber criminals pull off exploits the Alvi brothers never envisioned."
Well, I guess they should have patented it. :-)
X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H* (stupid slashdot filter this I hve too many capitals...Little does it know that I've uploaded a virus! HAHA..opps hahahha)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
It loosely meets the definition of a virus. It wasn't the first computer virus. It isn't very noteworthy, other than it was the first known computer virus which the author(s) took full credit, and provided their real names and accurate contact information. We have other words for this type of software now. You might even call it copy-protection, or DRM, today.
Computer viruses started off as an academic exercise. In other words, the goal was to create a self-reproducing program with survival instinct, similar to that of a real-world virus. According to Mark Ludwig's Little Black Book of Computer Viruses, the functional elements of a Computer Virus follow in the list below. I highly recommend the book, for anyone interested
Number 3 is really what separates a true "virus" from programs which are mislabeled as such. If the virus displays a message "I'm in your computer eating your data, nom nom nom!", it limits its own effectiveness. The virus will get eradicated, it will not survive in the wild. Which comes back to my point about this story. While this program loosely meets the definition of a virus, it was not written to be a self-reproducing entity with simulated survival instinct. It was primarily intended to prevent unauthorized copying. Its impact was limited to floppy disks with unauthorized copies of the program it was intended to protect from copying.
/^([Ss]ame [Bb]at (time, |channel.)){2}$/
Was there any reason at all to even write this article (except to get people to watch the intrusive ad, I mean)? The whole thing consisted of name-checking the Brain virus and then pointing out that malware tookits exist. This is news? No background on Brain, no evolution of malware, no information on how Brain (or any later piece of malware) works, just "malware toolkits! Be very afraid!".
The whole article was completely devoid of anything but the shallowest once-over of the malware toolkit scene. Sometimes I really wonder what the Slashdot editorial staff is thinking when they select articles to publish. Yeah, I must be new here.
"I also use the MVPS ad blocking hosts file." - by Rick17JJ (744063) on Wednesday January 19, @03:04PM (#34931482)
Good job & good choice... I'm a BIG "fan" of HOSTS files here, & why not: HOSTS files get you extra speed online (by blocking out adbanners OR even "hardcoding in" your fav. sites IPAddress - to - host/domain names 'equations' in them) AND extra layered security also!
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"I use both the "Ad-Block and "No Script" extensions under Firefox... I have a user configured firewall on both my computer and my DSL modem with all incoming ports closed and only a few outgoing ports open." - by Rick17JJ (744063) on Wednesday January 19, @03:04PM (#34931482)
As do I, alongside the WOT (web-of-trust) addon also, in FireFox (but Opera 11.01 is my REAL "preferred weapon of choice" though usually, & on either Windows 7 or KUbuntu 10.10 Linux (which are the current OS' I use here @ home)).
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"Perhaps, that is why I did not see the intrusive ad." - by Rick17JJ (744063) on Wednesday January 19, @03:04PM (#34931482)
You can BANK on that... & I was thinking the same thing myself yesterday, as I went over to the referred to source article's URL as noted in said article (warnings about "interstital ad" & all): I thought "Gee, where IS this allegedly interstital ad?" (because like you? I never once even saw it... & for the SAME reasons you did not, which is due to our setups & tools we both utilize in common!).
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"I use Linux as the operating system for my computer, by the way." - by Rick17JJ (744063) on Wednesday January 19, @03:04PM (#34931482)
As do I, KUbuntu 10.10x (fully updated/patched) 64-bit, as well as Windows 7 Professional (fully updated/patched) 64-bit.
APK
P.S.=> The techniques & tools you mentioned/noted work the SAME on either OS - getting me the same results you see (no ads), & no infestations via malwares for nearly 16 yrs. or so now as well... apk