Your browser is obsolete!

The page may not load correctly.

They were the first

Они были первыми

Other issues in this category (5)
  • add to favourites
    Add to Bookmarks

You can't put the computer virus genie back in the bottle

Read: 1279 Comments: 15 Rating: 43

A new era of virus writing began when viruses started to be detected "in the wild"—on computers of unsuspecting users. The first such viruses were worms (i.e., they could spread across a network, unlike modern Trojans!) called Virus 1, 2, 3 and Elk Cloner. They were created in 1981 for Apple II—the prototype of the current Mac.

A 15-year-old schoolboy created Elk Cloner with no trouble at all—in those days, virus threats were dismissed and anti-viruses did not exist. However, the worm did not pose a serious threat to systems—it spread by replicating itself to floppy disks (have any of our readers ever seen floppy disks?:) and displayed a poem with the line: Elk Cloner “will stick to you like glue”.

Only a few years later, IBM PCs became extremely popular. And as PCs became more abundant, virus activity increased as well. So, the expanded use of computers impacted the distribution of viruses—and virus outbreaks began.

In 1987, a virus called “Brain”, which infected many computers around the world, caused the first epidemic. It was written by two Pakistani brothers who had the good intentions of trying to combat piracy. Their virus displayed a message asking users to contact the authors for the “antidote”. When the brothers were inundated with phone calls from all over the world, they realised the scale of what had happened.

Dr.Web recommends

Now, many years after those events, computers and mobile devices are not just widespread, they are everywhere, and attackers use any and every opportunity to penetrate systems, damage them, and steal something of value. However, unlike the mid-1980s, to date, anti-viruses exist for all the popular operating systems. And, among anti-viruses, Dr.Web has one of the longest track records of success.

Rate this issue and receive Dr.Weblings! (1 vote = 1 Dr.Webling)

Sign in and get 10 Dr.Weblings for sharing the link to this issue via social media.

[Twitter]

Unfortunately, due to Facebook's technical limitations, Dr.Weblings cannot be awarded. However, you can share this link with your friends for free.

Tell us what you think

Leave your comment on the day of publication and get 10 Dr.Weblings, or get 1 Dr.Webling for a comment posted any other day. Comments are published automatically and are reviewed by a moderator. Rules for leaving comments about Doctor Web news items.

To leave a comment, you need to log in under your Doctor Web site account. If you don't have an account yet, you can create one.

Comments

Comments to other issues | My comments