History of the World’s Nastiest Computer Viruses
Most of us have unfortunately experienced a computer virus (which alters benign programs or files) at some point in time, but hopefully you’ve also got a good antivirus program installed on out computer to prevent the worst of the worst.
Currently, most malware attacks have specific targets for money making purposes, such as the SpyEye and Zeus Trojans designed to steal personal bank account details.
But back in the early days of the World Wide Web (before 2005), viruses were all about doing arbitrary damage, such as trashing hard drives, corrupting files and slowing down Internet or computer processing speeds. These were times when some of the most destructive viruses of all time were created.
The following guide will explore a timeline of the Top 10 most malevolent viruses in Internet history.
10) Stoned
Before Internet, the first computer viruses spread through floppy disks. One of the earliest malware attacks was the 1987 boot-sector virus called Stoned – it was called this because users would receive an on-screen message notifying infection by saying “Your computer is now stoned.”
The original version was copied by other miscreants, which ushered in the hacking practise of updating existing virus code to create further infections.
9) Jerusalem
The Jerusalem virus began spreading toward the end of 1987 and was launched every Friday the 13th. While it was slower to spread because of this, it proved to be much more destructive than the Stoned virus as it could infect both .exe and .com application files.
8) The Morris Worm
This nasty, which first hit in November 1988, is widely regarded as the first worm (self-contained program that spread without human intervention) to infect public networks. Its creator, Robert Tappan Morris, a Cornell University graduate student whose father was a famous computer scientist, became the first person convicted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
7) The Concept Virus
The 90’s saw the introduction of polymorphic viruses, meaning they could shiftily change their appearance with each new infection, making it difficult for antivirus programs to detect them.
The Concept virus, of this type of malware family, broke new ground in 1995 by being the first to infect Microsoft Word documents. And because many users were unaware that sharing documents in emails could easily spread infections, it became one of the fastest spreading viruses of its time.
6) Melissa
Reportedly named after a Florida stripper, the Melissa virus, which made its appearance in mid-1999, was one of the first of its kind designed to spread from computer to computer without relying on a user’s actions. For every PC it infected through email, it then tried to infect another 50 computers using the victim’s Microsoft Outlook address book. It was so destructively effective that it even forced Intel and Microsoft to temporarily shut down their mail servers.
5) The Love Bug
The ILOVEYOU virus, which came into play in May 2000, ushered in the brave new world of social engineering i.e. users being tricked into opening a file or revealing personal information. In the same way as Melissa, it spread through bogus emails that appeared to come from someone known to the recipient. Once this malicious virus was unleashed, it deleted multimedia and personal files, changed the Internet Explorer start page and propagated a tidal wave of junk mail.
The Love Bug is still considered to be one of the most destructive viruses ever created. It infected more than 50 million computers in nine days and caused several military sites to shut down their networks.
4) The Anna Kournikova Virus
Introduced in February 2001, the Kournikova virus was not highly destructive, but it was the first of its kind to entice email recipients to open a bogus attached picture (in this case of the famous tennis player it was named after). It was created by an obsessed young programmer from the Netherlands, who promptly turned himself in to authorities.
3) Code Red
The summer of 2001 saw the appearance of a new worm. Code Red, named after the caffeinated Mountain Dew soda that the antivirus researchers were drinking when they discovered it, targeted Microsoft servers. It managed to infect more than 350,000 computers in its time, causing overload and denial-of-service problems for websites globally. It also proved difficult to eradicate because it was able to re-infect systems after it had been removed.
2) Nimda
Nimda (“admin” spelled backwards), which appeared on Sept. 18 in 2001, was one of the most sophisticated bugs of its time, since it posed a threefold attack as a virus, worm and a Trojan. Because of this, it was able to spread faster than any previous malware – it spanned the globe in less than one hour and is reported to have caused billions of dollars worth of damage.
1) Netsky and Sasser
The Netsky and Sasser worms, which became known in 2004, took the unprecedented step of attempting to clean out existing worms on a user’s PC before installing themselves. This was the result of there being so many virus writers exploiting and building on each other’s code by this time that they were beginning to interfere with one another. Eventually, both viruses were traced back to a teenage computer science student in Germany.
Conclusion
Unfortunately, cyber criminals are only getting cleverer at creating and distributing malware. The good news however is that security providers are also getting smarter at developing antivirus software that identifies these threats. It is crucial however to keep this software as current as possible, and of course to make sure you buy it from only the most reliable suppliers.
About the Author: Peter McKiel is an independent IT Consultant for antivirus software.
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