Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
Search

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

20 Years of Computer Viruses

Posted by CowboyNeal on Fri Jan 20, 2006 12:28 AM
from the spreading-the-news dept.
Worms Security
Tuxedo Jack writes "The Register reports that twenty years ago today (19 January 1986), the first computer virus, Brain, was discovered. By modern standards, this was a minor virus, and it spread by floppy disks, which is a far cry from the network-aware worms of today. Still, though, it was the first noted virus, and we've had twenty years of pain and annoyance from it and its successors. Happy birthday, Brain, you and all your little virus friends - just know we're doing our damndest to keep you from having more."
+ -
story
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

20 Years of Computer Viruses 50 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.

  • Yay for viruses! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Jailbrekr (73837) <jailbrekr@digitaladdiction.net> on Friday January 20 2006, @12:32AM (#14516605) Homepage
    Thanks to the Blaster virus, I'm getting married in 2 days. See, viruses aren't all bad.

  • Sigh... (Score:5, Informative)

    by ryanr (30917) * <ryan@thievco.com> on Friday January 20 2006, @12:33AM (#14516608) Homepage Journal
    Not the first virus. It's the first PC virus, meaning IBM PC running DOS.

  • Message in the virus? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pvt_medic (715692) on Friday January 20 2006, @12:34AM (#14516618)
    Welcome to the Dungeon
    (c) 1986 Basit & Amjad (pvt) Ltd.
    BRAIN COMPUTER SERVICES
    730 NIZAB BLOCK ALLAMA IQBAL TOWN
    LAHORE-PAKISTAN
    PHONE :430791,443248,280530.
    Beware of this VIRUS....
    Contact us for vaccination.

    I wonder if anyone ever tried to look up these guys. Kind of blatent calling card if you ask me.

  • first PC virus (Score:5, Informative)

    by dotpavan (829804) on Friday January 20 2006, @12:36AM (#14516629) Homepage
    quoting wikipedia: "A program called "Elk Cloner" is credited with being the first computer virus to appear "in the wild" -- that is, 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."

    And, "The first PC virus was a boot sector virus called (c)Brain, created in 1986 by two brothers, Basit and Amjad Farooq Alvi, operating out of Lahore, Pakistan. The brothers reportedly created the virus to deter pirated copies of software they had written."

    • Re:first PC virus (Score:5, Funny)

      by Neo-Rio-101 (700494) on Friday January 20 2006, @12:39AM (#14516642)
      The brothers reportedly created the virus to deter pirated copies of software they had written.

      Predecessor to the SONY rootkit!
      *ducks*

    • Re:first PC virus (Score:5, Funny)

      by eweu (213081) on Friday January 20 2006, @12:49AM (#14516691)
      See? Apples have always had innovations years before PCs.

      The only computer virus I've ever had was the WDEF virus. Disinfectant caught it right away. That was 1992, so I guess I'm too smug.

    • Re:first PC virus (Score:5, Informative)

      by glowworm (880177) on Friday January 20 2006, @01:03AM (#14516756) Journal
      And... I believe the first network aware self propogating worm was the Morris worm [wikipedia.org] (1998/11/02) meant to gague the size of the internet.

      I believe the third worm and the first on-purpose malicious network worm was Wank from October 1989. It attacked VAX machines running on DECNet, changing passwords and lol phoning all the people who had accounts to annoy them ;). Cert Wank Advisory CA-1989-04 [cert.org] ;)

      Earlier in 1988 there was the hi.com worm, but that was just a zombie. It was meant to send a Merry Christmas message to all infected users on 25 December 1988 ;)


      W O R M A G A I N S T N U C L E A R K I L L E R S
      Your System Has Been Officially WANKed
      You talk of times of peace for all, and then prepare for war.

      Someone might know of an earlier malicious network aware worm, but this is the first one I know of.

  • Happy Birthday, Virus! (Score:5, Funny)

    by pHatidic (163975) on Friday January 20 2006, @12:38AM (#14516638) Homepage
    I LOVE YOU

  • Makes you wonder (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dartarrow (930250) on Friday January 20 2006, @12:39AM (#14516640) Homepage
    ... how Quantum Viruses would be.

    • Re:Makes you wonder (Score:4, Funny)

      by vertinox (846076) on Friday January 20 2006, @10:27AM (#14518968)
      Makes you wonder how Quantum Viruses would be.

      The good news is that you won't get infected until you observe the virus.

      The bad news is that if you do observe the virus, you have a 50/50 chance of a dead cat inside your computer.

  • okay! (Score:3, Funny)

    by maxrate (886773) on Friday January 20 2006, @12:43AM (#14516659)
    Time to whip out the old 5 1/4" floppies!!!!!!

  • Good luck (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 20 2006, @12:44AM (#14516661)
    "Happy birthday, Brain, you and all your little virus friends - just know we're doing our damndest to keep you from having more."

    Good luck. You'll need it, 'cause selection pressure tends to win.

  • Oh, really... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by creimer (824291) on Friday January 20 2006, @12:45AM (#14516671) Homepage
    ... it spread by floppy disks, which is a far cry from the network-aware worms of today.

    While a network virus could reach around the globe in a matter of seconds, floppy disk viruses were just as bad before networks and CDs became common. Not only did you have to scan your own hard drive, but each and every floppy disk if you didn't know where the virus came from. You often had to practice "safe computing" by asking if the floppy disk was scanned before you use it on your own machine.

    • Re:Oh, really... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by misleb (129952) on Friday January 20 2006, @01:56AM (#14516970)
      What was cool about the floppy born virus is that it is easy for collectors to store. I knew I guy who had a big box full of infected floppies. Hundreds of em'. All labeled with the virus that was on them. Some had multiple viruses. Neat stuff.

      -matthew
           

  • perfect business model (Score:5, Insightful)

    by roman_mir (125474) on Friday January 20 2006, @12:51AM (#14516703) Homepage
    create a crisis and provide means of solving the crisis for a nice fee.

      Welcome to the Dungeon
      (c) 1986 Basit & Amjad (pvt) Ltd.
      BRAIN COMPUTER SERVICES
      730 NIZAB BLOCK ALLAMA IQBAL TOWN
      LAHORE-PAKISTAN
      PHONE :430791,443248,280530.
      Beware of this VIRUS....
      Contact us for vaccination    ............ $#@%$@!!

    can we be sure the same thing isn't happening today at say... symantec?

    • I'd day it's pretty likely not (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Sycraft-fu (314770) on Friday January 20 2006, @01:12AM (#14516797)
      Main reason being there's no real need. There's enough assholes out there betweek immature assholes looking to cause trouble and greedy assholes looking to use systems for spam and such that there's just no lack of viruses.

      Remember that if they were doing such a thing they'd face extreme criminal charges when caught, and make no mistake, they would be caught. There's a lot of anti-virus companies out there, and a lot of security researchers. Sooner or later, I'd be diacovered they were the source and then they'd be fucked.

      You don't take risks like that if there's no reason. Ten viruses per year being released would be plenty to ensure your continued existance, since it only takes one nasty one to remind people your software is valuable. Given the thousands that are released, there's no reason to put yourself at risk making more.
    • Normally I would have used my mod points to mod you down as flamebait, but instead I think I'll reply.

      I happen to work for Symantec. I think we create great products. Yes, they have bugs. Sometimes they're bad bugs. Guess what - every piece of software installed on your PC has bugs. We fix them very quickly when it happens. We do a thing called "Rapid Response" and we turn around a patch as quickly as humanly possible. I've participated in one "Rapid Response", so yes, I do know what I'm talking abou

  • 20 years of Windows, too! (Score:5, Funny)

    by freeweed (309734) on Friday January 20 2006, @12:54AM (#14516717)
    Windows is also 20 years old, give or take a couple of months [wikipedia.org].

    Laugh, it's a joke. Windows wasn't even natively network aware until 10 years later :)

  • Brian? (Score:3, Funny)

    by caluml (551744) <slashdot&spamgoeshere,calum,org> on Friday January 20 2006, @12:58AM (#14516738) Homepage
    "No, I'm Brian, and so's my wife!"

  • I recall... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Velox_SwiftFox (57902) on Friday January 20 2006, @01:01AM (#14516751)
    When one media pundit was being subjected to derision because of his outlandish idea that viruses might be spread by email.

  • 20 years! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 20 2006, @01:06AM (#14516774)
    Coincidently, it was twenty years ago today that my first sexually transmiteed virus, Herpes, was discovered. Compared to today's potential bird flu, its a minor virus, and like Brain, it spread by my "floppy disk" (as I like to call it). Still, though, it was my first noted virus, and I've had twenty years of pain and annoyance from it and its many successors. Happy birthday, Herpes, you and all your little virus friends - just know I'm doing my damndest to keep myself from having more.

  • Worm verses Virus (Score:5, Informative)

    by Beave (519067) on Friday January 20 2006, @01:07AM (#14516780) Homepage
    It uses to be that "worm" != "virus". Now days, it seems, many people call just about everything a "virus", when in fact, the "more proper definition" would be worm. Or, maybe I'm just being an old fart about this. It's pretty simple. If it is a _standalone_ program meant to infect machines, then it would be considered a "worm". If the malicous program where to "infect" other programs (say - via .exe, .com infector or MBR), it's a "virus". That is, a "virus" will actually "attach" itself to a existing program (old com/exe infectors for eaxmple) or load themselves into the MBR/boot records. Then again, I see very obvious "trojans" get called "viruses!!!" all the time as well. Oh well :)

  • Gee, Brain. What do you want to do tonight? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bimkins (242641) on Friday January 20 2006, @01:14AM (#14516814)
    The same thing we do every night, Pinky, [symantec.com] try to infect the world!

  • Scientific American (Score:5, Informative)

    by michaelmalak (91262) <malak@acm.org> on Friday January 20 2006, @01:19AM (#14516838) Homepage
    This 1988 bibliography on viruses [textfiles.com] has many pre-1986 references, most notably from the popular press:
    • Dewdney, A. K.; Computer Recreations - In the game called Core War hostile programs engage in a battle of bits; Scientific American; Mar 1984.
    • Dewdney, A. K.; Computer Recreations - A Core War bestiary of viruses, worms and other threats to computer memories; Scientific American; Mar 1985.
    I've always believed that were it not for these Scientific American articles, it would have taken a lot longer for viruses to become prevalent. These articles piqued the interest of computer users (then synonymous with programmers) everywhere. For example, here's a 1994 comp.sys.apple2 post [google.com] I just found of someone who was seduced by the articles into writing viruses.
  • Macro Viruses, e-mails, Melissa, Blaster... what do they have in common, kids?

    "Microsoft products!"

    Well done, kids! You get an extra point today!

  • It's just amazing (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mcrbids (148650) on Friday January 20 2006, @02:49AM (#14517159) Journal
    I'm upgrading my personal mailserver from RedHat 7.2 (now no longer supported by Progeny, alas) tonight to CentOS 4.2. For about 1/2 hour, my new mail server's antivirus wasn't set up, even though email service was on.

    I was SHOCKED at how many viruses came in - like 40, more than 1 per minute! That means that this mail server was getting some 1,500 crap emails for me every day.

    Unbelievable...

    I've just gotten used to never seeing viruses in my email - it's an incredible crapflood of this stuff out there.

  • PC virus mentioned in 1984/85 (Score:3, Informative)

    by Terje Mathisen (128806) on Friday January 20 2006, @03:10AM (#14517212)
    I read the first article about the theoretical possibility of a PC virus in either 1984 or '85, at this time most people scoffed at it, simply refusing to believe it was possible.

    Anyway, having written quite a bit of asm code, I had no problems accepting the possibility, so for fun I decided to write a sort of vaccine:

    Simply a small program that took a digitial signature of every executable piece of code (boot blocks, .com/.exe etc) and saved this to a text file on a bootable floppy, which was then marked read-only.

    Afterwards I could simply put in this floppy and reboot, whereupon the same program would compare the current signatures with those saved on the floppy.

    The problem was to keep the original list updated each time I wrote a new program. :-(

    Terje
    • tripwire. I remember a PC project at a bank that used it to check the system daily.

      Also remember the times when it was universally accepted that a virus could only spread via bootblocks and programs, and not via datafiles. Datafiles were not code so they never could get executed.

      This was first defeated by our friends at M$ who decided it was a good idea to have a macrolanguage in wordprocessor documents.
      OK, we had to adjust the abovementioned truth only a little bit, because such a document really is a pr

  • No, THIS is the first computer virus. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Animats (122034) on Friday January 20 2006, @03:50AM (#14517384) Homepage
    This is the first computer virus. [fourmilab.ch] From 1975. With source code.

  • SCA (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 20 2006, @03:56AM (#14517413)
    And theres me thinking the SCA bootblock virus from the SCA in 87 was a trendsetter, but obviously beaten by the apple II stuff. It certainly was a nice piece of code for 4k, funky scrolling text on a red bar set on a black background with the words "Something wonderful has happened" fading up and the usual bootloader. I remember the first time seeing this and someone explaining to me how it replicated, and thinking it was a wind up. Then realizing it was not. The fact they stuffed this into 4k was at the time something of a eye opener and I think help spark the 4k demo scene on the amiga (that and that is the size of the bootsector on a amiga floppy)
    The only real problem with it was commercial games used the 4k bootsector on the floppy to bootstrap their copy protected loaders in, and it used to overwrite these.
    We managed to keep the spread down to a minimum by use of a cunning device known as a "write protect tab". That is once we had virus checked a disk, it was write protected and that was that, since joe average could not afford a hard disk back then and the amiga ran out of its roms anything memory resident just went when the power was pulled...

  • Worms were there first (Score:4, Informative)

    by Yvanhoe (564877) on Friday January 20 2006, @05:45AM (#14517716) Journal
    it spread by floppy disks, which is a far cry from the network-aware worms of today.

    "The first implementation of a worm was by two researchers at Xerox PARC in 1978. The authors, John Shoch and Jon Hupp, originally designed the worm to find idle processors on the network and assign them tasks, sharing the processing and so improving the whole network efficiency."

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_worm [wikipedia.org]

    Not only was it a "network aware" worm, but also a rootkit and a crude "grid" implementation.

    • Re:No such thing as "computer" virus (Score:4, Informative)

      by bugg (65930) on Friday January 20 2006, @01:15AM (#14516818) Homepage
      I don't think that's true, many old viruses used to operate mainly in the boot sector, and as such were infecting and spreading at a level beneath the OS (and beneath filesystems, for that)

      I don't care what kind of disk you're booting, it has an MBR, and there might be a virus in it...

    • You know.. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by bmajik (96670)
      I've owned machines running DOS 5.0, Windows 3.0, 3.1, OS/2 2.1, OS/2 2.11, Windows 2k Server, Windows XP, Solaris 2.4, Solaris 2.5, Solaris 2.5.1, Solaris 2.6, IRIX 6.2, IRIX 6.5, NeXTSTEP 2.x, NeXTStep 3.3, OpenStep 4.2, OpenBSD 2.{5,6,7,8}, Linux TAMU, Slackware 1.0 (and a bunch of subsequent versions).

      Do you know what?

      I have never had a virus of any kind on any of those machines.

      The best anti-virus protection is inbetween your ears.

      Ironically, my IRIX machine was remote rooted, and i had a DOS successfu
      • I met the guy who developed Stoned, down in New Zealand. Good times, good times.

        On meeting the guy, did you chuck him in the nearest river? Because that would have been the only meeting that loon would have been a good time for me. The stoned virus very nearly wiped out my A-Level computing project (UK exams taken at 18) and nearly got me banned from the lab as well. Had I not had an ST with some fairly nice sector copying programs, I would have lost everything with a week to go, and so my University chan

    • Angry flower (Score:4, Insightful)

      by mobby_6kl (668092) on Friday January 20 2006, @12:03PM (#14519783)
      >THE PLURAL OF VIRUS IS _NOT_ VIRI OR VIRII! Its viruses.

      THE CONTRACTED FORM OF "IT IS" IS _NOT_ ITS!

      It is = it's. You should learn this before correcting others with dictionary definitions.

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.