Computer Virus Celebrates its 26th Year

Computer virus, one of the most infamous aspects of both the web and personal computing, celebrated its 26th year this week.

Happy birthday computer virus!!!

It was 1983 when the first official virus was born giving a fundamental change in computer security. Fred Cohen, a graduate student from University of Southern California, demonstrated a computer virus during a security seminar at Lehign University in Pennsylvania. Cohen made a self-replicating program likened to a virus by his adviser, Len Adleman, coining the term virus.

Cohen’s malware was not the first of its kind. Other computer scientists had also theorized self-replicating programs that could spread from computer to computer. Rich Skrenta – a 15-year old programmer from Pennsylvania who beat Cohen, wrote the Elk Cloner program. It is a self-replicating boot-sector virus infecting Apple II computers through a floppy disk.

In 1986, two Pakistani brothers wrote the “Brain” virus only intended to infect IBM PCs running bootleg copies of a heart-monitoring program. The said virus has their names and phone numbers included in its copyright notice for people to contact them for vaccination if their PC gets infected.

In 1988, the first widely-propagating worm, called Morris worm, was unleashed by Robert Tappan Morris, Jr. , a Cornell University graduate student and son of a National Security Agency chief scientist, spreading to thousands of machines worldwide. He was the first person to be convicted under Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986.

In 1999, David L. Smith wrote the Melissa virus infecting e-mail programs by clogging them with infected e-mails issuing from the worm. It is the first successful mass-mailing worm. In 2000, the Love Bug virus was made by a student from the Philippines. It spreads worldwide – Hongkong, Europe and to US, causing billions of damage and also affected The Pentagon, CIA and the British Parliament. Its writer was able to escape prosecution because the Philippines had no computer-crime law during that time.

Viruses are growing and new threats come every year. Malware writers used to do annoying tricks to your computer to get your attention but their motives have changed now. Nowadays, they create malware to infect your PC, steal data and money from online bank accounts or make your system into one of those popular spam-sewing botnets.

Computer virus has come a long way to celebrate its 26th year. Many viruses has been revealed, defeated and will be discovered in the future. Contact Techie Now for your PC protection. We provide PC support services – virus and spyware removal, performance optimization, installation and configuration, and general repair. Techie Now protects will keep your PC clean and virus-free.

Computer Virus Celebrates its 26th Year

Computer virus, one of the most infamous aspects of both the web and personal computing, celebrated its 26th year this week.

Happy birthday computer virus!!!

It was 1983 when the first official virus was born giving a fundamental change in computer security. Fred Cohen, a graduate student from University of Southern California, demonstrated a computer virus during a security seminar at Lehign University in Pennsylvania. Cohen made a self-replicating program likened to a virus by his adviser, Len Adleman, coining the term virus.

Cohen’s malware was not the first of its kind. Other computer scientists had also theorized self-replicating programs that could spread from computer to computer. Rich Skrenta – a 15-year old programmer from Pennsylvania who beat Cohen, wrote the Elk Cloner program. It is a self-replicating boot-sector virus infecting Apple II computers through a floppy disk.

In 1986, two Pakistani brothers wrote the “Brain” virus only intended to infect IBM PCs running bootleg copies of a heart-monitoring program. The said virus has their names and phone numbers included in its copyright notice for people to contact them for vaccination if their PC gets infected.

In 1988, the first widely-propagating worm, called Morris worm, was unleashed by Robert Tappan Morris, Jr. , a Cornell University graduate student and son of a National Security Agency chief scientist, spreading to thousands of machines worldwide. He was the first person to be convicted under Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986.

In 1999, David L. Smith wrote the Melissa virus infecting e-mail programs by clogging them with infected e-mails issuing from the worm. It is the first successful mass-mailing worm. In 2000, the Love Bug virus was made by a student from the Philippines. It spreads worldwide – Hongkong, Europe and to US, causing billions of damage and also affected The Pentagon, CIA and the British Parliament. Its writer was able to escape prosecution because the Philippines had no computer-crime law during that time.

Viruses are growing and new threats come every year. Malware writers used to do annoying tricks to your computer to get your attention but their motives have changed now. Nowadays, they create malware to infect your PC, steal data and money from online bank accounts or make your system into one of those popular spam-sewing botnets.

Computer virus has come a long way to celebrate its 26th year. Many viruses has been revealed, defeated and will be discovered in the future. Contact Techie Now for your PC protection. We provide PC support services – virus and spyware removal, performance optimization, installation and configuration, and general repair. Techie Now protects will keep your PC clean and virus-free.