20th Anniversary Of Computer Viruses Commemorated 260
DoraLives writes "Our good friends at the BBC are celebrating the 20th anniversary of the computer virus. So, viruses are no longer teenagers and are now entering adulthood, as 'there are almost 60,000 viruses in existence and they have gone from being a nuisance to a permanent menace.' What wonders shall there be to come, as these marvelous bits of code continue to grow and multiply?" We ran a recent BBC-authored story on the psychology of virus writers.
Aren't they at least 21? (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone old enough to know what I'm talking about?
Anyone remember this one... (Score:2, Interesting)
Good ol' days....
XBox viruses? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:thank you, thank you.. (Score:3, Interesting)
People write for MS because it's what people use.
Microsoft apologism.
There were viruses on the Mac "back in the day", UNIX worms and Linux worms but MS doesn't have enough fingers to stick in the dike. Consumer product recalls don't come about because many people use them, they come about because of flaws in the product. Software companies are immume to these types of recalls and we all pay.
Once and for all (Score:3, Interesting)
Londo and the Computer Demons (Score:3, Interesting)
This equates to artificially intelligent versions of viruses, complete with very sophisticated capabilities. A script kiddies delight. Of course, properly written, it could be dangerous to play with, taking out a few script kiddy systems in the process.
(imagine demonic voices coming out of a system - "Who dares summon me?")
Viruses and OS X (Score:4, Interesting)
Now the point of my story - My friend looked into exactly what Norton was checking for, and it turns out that almost half of the viruses it was checking for were actually Microsoft Word macros. Now, I don't know that much about Word macros, but I'm assuming that most of the ones that would mess up a Windows box are different from those that would mess up an OS X box. So before anyone says that virus only show up for windows because it is the most popular, also realize that Micro$oft can't even write a secure word processor.
Viruses (Score:3, Interesting)
Downloading virus definitions? (Score:3, Interesting)
So at this rate, how long until the virus definition files for your AV software are so big and so frequent that you need broadband just to stay updated enough to maintain a reasonable level of protection?
How long until it takes gigs of storage space to store them all?
Wonder if Symantec, McAfee, etc., will offer a remote storage service in the future? Does everybody really need to store the same list of virus definitions on C: ?
Are virus definitions the future of AV or will heuristics and other "AI" get good enough in the foreseeable future that the one-off approach of definitions will become obsolete?
Subtle jibes and jabs (Score:2, Interesting)
While virus writers are usually socially adept, many hackers are not.
That's the only line that really stuck out to me in this story... If you read on, however, it looks like they're talking about crackers of sorts. Any idea on who they're trying to insult here?
Fred Cohen's original article (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately I cannot find a web resource for it, but the original article appeared in Computers and Security. The article includes source code in a cross between pseudo-code and a shell command language.
The original article is:
Computer Viruses Theory and Experiments
Fred Cohen
Computers and Security no. 6 (1987)
Pages 22-35
Elsevier Science Publishers, BV (North-Holland)
This article was followed by a plethora of misguided "containment" articles also in Computers & Security. Cohen proved them wrong again in:
Computational Aspects of Computer Viruses
Fred Cohen
Computers & Security no. 8 (1989)
Pages 325-344
Elsevier Science Publishers, Ltd.
As an aside, I read that Mr. Cohen had to wait several years before being able to publish his papers because not a single publication in the US would print his articles. The first article is very entertaining and instructional.
Cohen's first computer virus pseudo-code:(If I have time to scan them, I'll post a link to page scans of these articles; right now I have too much work.)
Cheers,
EugeneRe:Aren't they at least 21? (Score:4, Interesting)
virus. It seems like that was more than 20 years
ago... but it wasn't. It was 1990.
I remember there was a lot of hoopla about how
there was a "Friday The 13th" virus that was
going to attack the computers of the UC system
in August of 1990.
I bought a motherboard and a 10Mb HD from a
Taiwanese sutdent at UCLA who was going into the
PC hardware business.
The HD came with DOS and a copy of speed.com
installed... I noticed the first time I ran it
that speed.com reported an odd, inexplicable
value for the processor MHz.
After m$ word failed with a checksum error (m$
products failed more gracefully in those days)
I compared word.exe to the copy stored elsewhere
on the HD and found some odd strings. I managed
to get an almost clean copy of the viral code by
writing a short assembly program and running it.
I reported this to the SEASNET folks, and in a
couple of hours they called me back and said
"congratulations, you have isolated the Friday
the 13th virus".
I asked them to keep my name and department out
of the press release, hence it became known as
the Westwood virus in honor of the location of
UCLA (go figure).
Re:"Celebrate"? (Score:2, Interesting)
The "Lehigh" virus (aka PC-AIDS) (Score:2, Interesting)
I was a student consultant at the Lehigh University computer center (Bethlehem PA, USA) in 1986 when the "Lehigh" virus surfaced. We called it PC-AIDS and told people to wear their "floppy condoms" (write protect tape). A few consultants (Loren Keim et al) wrote the antivirus program for it.
As far as I know, this was the first virus to get national attention. A letter from our center's director was printed verbatim in a PC Magazine column, and that got picked up by other media.
It was interesting to see how people first reacted to the idea of a computer virus. Our references to AIDS and condoms certainly didn't help. It freaked people out (remember, this was 1986).
Re:"Celebrate"? (Score:1, Interesting)
As far as your comment about todays viruses being junk. Well, hell, look at Saphire (SQL-Slammer worm). The entire fscking worm fit inside of a single UDP packet! . There are lots of cool virus's being written nowadays. You just have to look.
Re:thank you, thank you.. (Score:2, Interesting)