In January 1986 the first ever computer virus was unleashed via floppy disk, and 20 years on the problem is still very much a nightmare situation for the average PC user.
Though it's origin is still disputed it is thought the virus, known as Brain, was coded by two Pakistani programmers named Basit and Amjad who designed their virus to affect every 360kb floppy inserted into the drive. Four years later a company called Symantec launched the now hugely popular Norton Antivirus.
Within two years the number of malicious programs had increased by 420% to 1300, this was probably helped by creation kits like the Virus Creation Laboratory which was also released in 1992.
Some of the more memorable viruses since then include 1999's Melissa virus, which executed a macro which sent copies of itself to 50 people in the users Outlook address book, the Love Bug which deleted MP3, MP2 and JPG files as well as sending usernames and passwords to the author and 2004's MyDoom worm which affected businesses, banks and the British Coastguard.
Today there are more than 150,000 malicious programs and over 25 major companies specialising in anti-virus software for the Windows platform alone.
View: BBC News - Computer Virus Hits 20
View: Computer Virus Timeline
Though it's origin is still disputed it is thought the virus, known as Brain, was coded by two Pakistani programmers named Basit and Amjad who designed their virus to affect every 360kb floppy inserted into the drive. Four years later a company called Symantec launched the now hugely popular Norton Antivirus.
Within two years the number of malicious programs had increased by 420% to 1300, this was probably helped by creation kits like the Virus Creation Laboratory which was also released in 1992.
Some of the more memorable viruses since then include 1999's Melissa virus, which executed a macro which sent copies of itself to 50 people in the users Outlook address book, the Love Bug which deleted MP3, MP2 and JPG files as well as sending usernames and passwords to the author and 2004's MyDoom worm which affected businesses, banks and the British Coastguard.
Today there are more than 150,000 malicious programs and over 25 major companies specialising in anti-virus software for the Windows platform alone.
View: BBC News - Computer Virus Hits 20 View: Computer Virus Timeline
When I worked in a support dept. we used to get people like you all the time, they would bring their PC's in and boast about how they never did anything to secure their systems and never really practiced basic computer security.
Upon inspection of their systems it was often not unusual to find that they had been infected multiple times over - and that really no one is that clever to avoid any kind of infection for so long.
You may not have any problems if you have just installed your OS, or have a new PC with lot's of recent updates, but just to be on the safe side and to protect other users (particularly those on your contact list) if you can't be assed caring about security, you could at least try http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ which is a free online virus scan. It is really very good and you don't ever really need to install anything.
It certainly wouldn't kill you to run a virus scan at least once a month or so. Not doing so is simply irresponsible.
GJ
I have had a couple since the 1980's. Back in the floppy exchange days, they were very common, and most everyone had one at one point or another.
These days, there are so many protection options that it should be rare for an experienced user to get infected.
GJ
Anyway, I haven't got any of those serious virus, but from time to time my av prompts with some little thing..
I installed windows 95 over my windows 3.1 but it never could boot properly
I have also never need infected by SpyWare. Such things only happen to very gullible users or users who get software from untrusted sources (peer-to-peer and such).
I actually just recently started using Windows OneCare Beta, more for its backup then AV, but it does have AV. So I guess I can't really claim that I don't use AV anymore, at least not for the last month or so.
Last edited by Jugalator on 21 Jan 2006 - 18:51
and to another 20 years of ruining data
Thats just what is known.
There was a time that some school of thought said that windows is a computer virus.
The Brain virus was written to stop their software from being pirated.
So thats 20 years also of computer software piracy.
Still a virus though.
I thought Peter Norton sold his software company to Symantec in 1990?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Norton
Sasser did catch me at home, purely bad luck there; I'd just reinstalled Windows and was in the process of DLing ZoneAlarm when it struck. Nowadays I tend to keep a copy of the installer backed up
Wonder when the first antivirus app 'false positive' was. Mine was "Trojan.ByteVerify" in my Java cache, which recurred incessantly until the day I waved goodbye to Panda antivirus.
I turned on my system at work, and started to go thru my files of photos I needed to add to work instructions for our dept. The icon had changed, and I opened the file to see why....
The AV flashed a warning about it being a virus, and then started to get caught in a loop. I unplugged the machine....removed it from the network, and went about removing that POS from the machine file by file. I was not impressed.
I just love these milestones. Heres to another 20 years of wasting people's time and money.
But Symantec have quickly earned a lot of money and acquire Delrina with their higly popular Win Fax Pro software. After some time and updates NAV started to do his job.
So you can learn now how to do business :.
ehehhe like someone mentioned in an earlier comment: "The good Old days..."
Best of 20 Years of the Computer Virii
"A Comprehensive History of the Torture and Execution of Convicted Malware Writers"
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