Say the term “virus” to most computer users and you’ll cause a shudder. But, what do you really know about computer viruses? How do they work? Why are they written? What can you do to protect yourself?
Introduction
If you have a computer; and I assume you do since this was written on a blog; you have no doubt heard of computer viruses. But, how much do you know?
Please read on to get a brief introduction to what viruses are, and what you can do about them.
History
For this we have to go way back in the history of computers – 1984. Two Pakistani brothers had a software program that they realized was being pirated. Their response was to write a small program that was stored on the distribution floppy that would be on every copy made. This way, any copy of their program would carry a small copyright message. This program dubbed Brain would become the first virus, although it was benign in nature.
But, we can go back even farther. In the 1950s, Bell Labs wrote a game that allowed players to attack other players computers. They did this by writing malicious programs.
In 1974 the term “worm” was used for the first time by author John Brunner to describe a program that can spread across networks. Of course, that was well before the interconnected world we are in today; so a worm spreading across a network would typically only affect a single network.
1983 – The term “virus” is used for the first time by Fred Cohen. He described a virus as “a program that can ‘infect’ other programs by modifying them to include a possible evolved copy of itself.”
1988 – “The Internet Worm” spreads through DARPA – the predecessor to todays internet.
2000 – A virus for the Palm platform appears, but no infections are reported.
David L Smith, author of the Melissa virus, is sentenced to 20 months in prison in 2002. The Melissa virus was released in 1999 and spread itself via email.
August 2003 is considered the worst month in history for computer viruses. Admittedly, it is a short history.
And, in the summer of 2004 the a virus able to spread from cell phone to cell phone appeared. It only affected BlueTooth enabled phones, and had no malicious code. No doubt, more of this type will follow.
Be First to Comment