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COMPUTER TIPS HOME
MAIN HOME |
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Computer Virus History |
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A
computer virus is a self-replicating
computer program written to alter the
way a computer operates, without the
permission or knowledge of the user.
Elk Cloner is credited with being the
first computer virus to appear "in the
wild" -- outside the single computer or
lab where it was created. Written in
1982 by Rich Skrenta, it attached itself
to the Apple DOS 3.3 operating system
and spread by floppy disk. The first PC
virus was a boot sector virus called (c)Brain,
created in 1986 by two brothers, Basit
and Amjad Farooq Alvi, Pakistan. The
brothers reportedly created the virus to
deter pirated copies of software they
had written |
Before computer networks became
widespread, most viruses spread on
removable media, particularly floppy
disks. In the early days of the personal
computer, many users regularly exchanged
information and programs on floppies.
Some viruses spread by infecting
programs stored on these disks, while
others installed themselves into the
disk boot sector.
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Traditional computer viruses emerged in
the 1980s, driven by the spread of
personal computers and the resultant
increase in BBS and modem use, and
software sharing. Bulletin board driven
software sharing contributed directly to
the spread of Trojan horse programs, and
viruses were written to infect popularly
traded software. Shareware and bootleg
software were equally common vectors for
viruses on BBS's.
Since the mid-1990s, macro viruses have
become common. Most of these viruses are
written in the scripting languages for
Microsoft programs such as Word and
Excel. These viruses spread in Microsoft
Office by infecting documents and
spreadsheets. |
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Since Word and Excel were also available for
Mac OS, most of these viruses were able to
spread on Macintosh computers as well.
A computer virus may also be transmitted
through instant messaging.
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A virus may send a web address link as an
instant message to all the contacts on an
infected machine. If the recipient, thinking
the link is from a friend (a trusted source)
and follows the link to the website, the
virus hosted at the site may be able to
infect this new computer and continue
propagating.
The newest species of the virus family
is the cross-site scripting virus. The
virus emerged from research and was
academically demonstrated in 2005. This
virus utilizes cross-site scripting
vulnerabilities to propagate. Since 2005
there have been multiple instances of
the cross-site scripting viruses in the
wild, most notable sites affected have
been MySpace and Yahoo. |
_________________________________________________________________
About The Author:
Written By David
David is the webmaster of
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Updates everyday!
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