Computer Virus Timeline
 

[B][U][CENTER][SIZE="4"]Computer Virus Timeline[/SIZE][/CENTER][/U][/B]


[B]1949 [/B]
Theories for self-replicating programs are first developed.

[B]1981 [/B]
Apple Viruses 1, 2, and 3 are some of the first viruses “in the wild,” or in the public domain. Found on the Apple II operating system, the viruses spread through Texas A&M via pirated computer games.

[B]1983 [/B]
Fred Cohen, while working on his dissertation, formally defines a computer virus as “a computer program that can affect other computer programs by modifying them in such a way as to include a (possibly evolved) copy of itself.”
[B]
1986 [/B]
Two programmers named Basit and Amjad replace the executable code in the boot sector of a floppy disk with their own code designed to infect each 360kb floppy accessed on any drive. Infected floppies had “© Brain” for a volume label.
[B]
1987 [/B]
The Lehigh virus, one of the first file viruses, infects command.com files.

[B]1988 [/B]
One of the most common viruses, Jerusalem, is unleashed. Activated every Friday the 13th, the virus affects both .exe and .com files and deletes any programs run on that day.
MacMag and the Scores virus cause the first major Macintosh outbreaks.

[B]1990 [/B]
Symantec launches Norton AntiVirus, one of the first antivirus programs developed by a large company.
[B]
1991 [/B]
Tequila is the first widespread polymorphic virus found in the wild. Polymorphic viruses make detection difficult for virus scanners by changing their appearance with each new infection.

[B]1992 [/B]
1300 viruses are in existence, an increase of 420% from December of 1990.
The Dark Avenger Mutation Engine (DAME) is created. It is a toolkit that turns ordinary viruses into polymorphic viruses. The Virus Creation Laboratory (VCL) is also made available. It is the first actual virus creation kit.
[B]
1994 [/B]
Good Times email hoax tears through the computer community. The hoax warns of a malicious virus that will erase an entire hard drive just by opening an email with the subject line “Good Times.” Though disproved, the hoax resurfaces every six to twelve months.

[B]1995 [/B]
Word Concept becomes one of the most prevalent viruses in the mid-1990s. It is spread through Microsoft Word documents.

[B]
1996 [/B]
Baza, Laroux (a macro virus), and Staog viruses are the first to infect Windows95 files, Excel, and Linux respectively.

[B]1998 [/B]
Currently harmless and yet to be found in the wild, StrangeBrew is the first virus to infect Java files. The virus modifies CLASS files to contain a copy of itself within the middle of the file's code and to begin execution from the virus section.
The Chernobyl virus spreads quickly via .exe files. As the notoriety attached to its name would suggest, the virus is quite destructive, attacking not only files but also a certain chip within infected computers.
Two California teenagers infiltrate and take control of more than 500 military, government, and private sector computer systems.

[B]1999 [/B]
The Melissa virus, W97M/Melissa, executes a macro in a document attached to an email, which forwards the document to 50 people in the user's Outlook address book. The virus also infects other Word documents and subsequently mails them out as attachments. Melissa spread faster than any previous virus, infecting an estimated 1 million PCs.
Bubble Boy is the first worm that does not depend on the recipient opening an attachment in order for infection to occur. As soon as the user opens the email, Bubble Boy sets to work.
Tristate is the first multi-program macro virus; it infects Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files.

[B]2000 [/B]
The Love Bug, also known as the ILOVEYOU virus, sends itself out via Outlook, much like Melissa. The virus comes as a VBS attachment and deletes files, including MP3, MP2, and .JPG. It also sends usernames and passwords to the virus's author.
W97M.Resume.A, a new variation of the Melissa virus, is determined to be in the wild. The “resume” virus acts much like Melissa, using a Word macro to infect Outlook and spread itself.
The “Stages” virus, disguised as a joke email about the stages of life, spreads across the Internet. Unlike most previous viruses, Stages is hidden in an attachment with a false “.txt” extension, making it easier to lure recipients into opening it. Until now, it has generally been safe to assume that text files are safe.
“Distributed denial-of-service” attacks by hackers knock Yahoo, eBay, Amazon, and other high profile web sites offline for several hours.

[B]2001 [/B]
Shortly after the September 11th attacks, the Nimda virus infects hundreds of thousands of computers in the world. The virus is one of the most sophisticated to date with as many as five different methods of replicating and infecting systems. The “Anna Kournikova” virus, which mails itself to persons listed in the victim's Microsoft Outlook address book, worries analysts who believe the relatively harmless virus was written with a “tool kit” that would allow even the most inexperienced programmers to create viruses. Worms increase in prevalence with Sircam, CodeRed, and BadTrans creating the most problems. Sircam spreads personal documents over the Internet through email. CodeRed attacks vulnerable webpages, and was expected to eventually reroute its attack to the White House homepage. It infected approximately 359,000 hosts in the first twelve hours. BadTrans is designed to capture passwords and credit card information.

[B]2002 [/B]
Author of the Melissa virus, David L. Smith, is sentenced to 20 months in federal prison. The LFM-926 virus appears in early January, displaying the message “Loading.Flash.Movie” as it infects Shockwave Flash (.swf) files. Celebrity named viruses continue with the “Shakira,” “Britney Spears,” and “Jennifer Lopez” viruses emerging. The Klez worm, an example of the increasing trend of worms that spread through email, overwrites files (its payload fills files with zeroes), creates hidden copies of the originals, and attempts to disable common anti-virus products. The Bugbear worm also makes it first appearance in September. It is a complex worm with many methods of infecting systems.

[B]2003[/B]
In January the relatively benign “Slammer” (Sapphire) worm becomes the fastest spreading worm to date, infecting 75,000 computers in approximately ten minutes, doubling its numbers every 8.5 seconds in its first minute of infection. The Sobig worm becomes the one of the first to join the spam community. Infected computer systems have the potential to become spam relay points and spamming techniques are used to mass-mail copies of the worm to potential victims.

[B]2004 [/B]
In January a computer worm, called MyDoom or Novarg, spreads through emails and file-sharing software faster than any previous virus or worm. MyDoom entices email recipients to open an attachment that allows hackers to access the hard drive of the infected computer. The intended goal is a “denial of service attack” on the SCO Group, a company that is suing various groups for using an open-source version of its Unix programming language. SCO offers a $250,000 reward to anyone giving information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the people who wrote the worm.
An estimated one million computers running Windows are affected by the fast-spreading Sasser computer worm in May. Victims include businesses, such as British Airways, banks, and government offices, including Britain's Coast Guard. The worm does not cause irreparable harm to computers or data, but it does slow computers and cause some to quit or reboot without explanation. The Sasser worm is different than other viruses in that users do not have to open a file attachment to be affected by it. Instead, the worm seeks out computers with a security flaw and then sabotages them. An 18-year-old German high school student confessed to creating the worm. He's suspected of releasing another version of the virus.

[B]2005[/B]
On August 16th, a number of large corporations and government agencies are affected by the Zotob worm, which attacks security vulnerabilities in Microsoft operating systems. The affected systems, most of which had not downloaded a recently released Microsoft security patch, begin to shutdown and restart repeatedly. The worm receives a great amount of press coverage due to the fact that major media outlets such as CNN, The Associated Press, and the New York Times fall victim to the attack. The virus, however, has little impact on most home users. Authorities arrested an 18-year-old Moroccan man believed to the be the author of the virus.
On October 5th, hackers attack a popular networking site, myspace.com, taking advantage of the fact that users can upload any type of coding or content they wish. The virus adds its author, Samy Kamkar to each infected user’s “friend” list and adds “but most of all Samy is my hero” to the user’s profile. The virus is then able to affect all of the friends on the infected user’s friend list. The virus spreads to over 1 million users in 20 hours, but is quickly contained as the site begins to filter out the offending code.

[B]2006 [/B]
On February 3rd, a mass-mailing virus designed to attack on the third of each month is launched. Thirty minutes after start up, the worm, known as Nyxem. E, replaces all document files, including Microsoft Word documents, with the file name "DATAError [47 0F 94 93 F4 K5]," rendering them useless. Quick action by Internet service providers, software, and hardware manufactures help contain the virus in the following months.
In June, myspace.com is once again attacked, this time by a virus that exploits a weakness in the Quicktime application used to play music on a user’s profile. The worm adds code to the profile that changes the display name to “lOrdOfthenOOse” and does not allow it to be edited. The virus affects over 70 million myspace users, but causes no real harm and is quickly destroyed.
[B]
2007 [/B]
During a six month advertising campaign, hundreds of users click on a banner ad offering free computer viruses to those who do not already have them. While users are not actually infected, the campaign is an attempt by a Finnish computer scientist to show how advertising can easily be used to spread such worms.
In March, the NETSKY.P virus begins infecting computers worldwide by sending e-mails using an infected user’s account. The e-mails contain attachments and messages based on a number of popular news and entertainment categories. By taking hold of the infected user’s address book, the virus is able to reach contacts that are unsuspecting of the attacks and likely to open attachments from a familiar sender.


[U][B][SIZE="4"][CENTER]How to Protect Yourself[/CENTER][/SIZE][/B][/U][LIST][*]Don't open email from strangers or attachments you weren't expecting—especially attachments with .exe extensions
[*]Back up important files on floppy disks, Zip drives, or other storage devices on a regular basis, so that they can easily be replaced if a virus wipes out your hard drive
[*]Install the newest antivirus software on your computer, such as Norton Anti-Virus 2000 or McAfee Virus Scan for Windows, or Virex for Macs
[*]Check your software vendor's website regularly for updates that will protect against viruses and worms—like the Love Bug—released since your antiviral software was written[/LIST]

Fact Monster/Information Please® Database, © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.