computer viruses in history

8/6/2019 Computer Viruses in History

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Most Dangerous Computer Viruses in History



� A computer virus is a computer programthat can copy itself and infect a computer

without the permission or knowledge of theuser.



Jerusalem ± 1988

� Friday 13, 1988 the computer virusmanaged to infect a number of institutions

in Europe, America and the Middle East.The name was given to the virus after oneof the first places that got ³acquainted´

with it ± theJ

erusalem University.



� Jerusalem virus managed to infectthousands of computers while still

remaining unnoticed.� Back then the anti-virus programs werenot as advanced as they are today and alot of users had little belief of the existence

of computer viruses



Morris (a.k.a. Internet Worm) ±

November 1988� This computer virus infected over 6,000

computer systems in the United States,

including the famous NASA resear ch

Institute, which for some time remainedcompletely paralyzed.



� Due to erratic code, the worm managed tosend millions of copies of itself to differentnetwork computers, being able to entirely

paralyze all network resources. Thedamages caused by the Morris computer virus were estimated at $96 millions.



� There were a number of other interestingideas used by the virus ± for example itcould pick user passwords



Solar Sunrise ± 1998

� Using a computer virus, hackers, in 1998,penetrated and took control of over 500computers systems that belonged to thearmy, government and private sector of the United States



� Initially it was believed that the attackswere planed by the operatives in Iraq. Itwas later revealed that the incidentsrepresented the work of two Americanteenagers from California.



CIH ± 1998

� Unleashed from Taiwan in June of 1998,CIH is recognized as one of the mostdangerous and destructive viruses ever.The virus infected Windows 95, 98 filesand was able to remain resident in a PC¶smemory, where it continued to infect.



� CIH is also known as the Chernobyl virusbecause the trigger date of certain strainsof the virus coincides with the date of theChernobyl nuclear reactor accident.



Melissa ± 1999

� For the first time computers gotacknowledged with Melissa computer viruson March 26, 1999, when the virus shutdown Internet mail system, which gotblocked with e-mails infected by the worm.



� The original form of the virus was sentthrough e-mail to different users.



� Melissa computer virus was developed byDavid L. Smith in Aberdeen Township,New Jersey. Its name comes from a lapdancer that the programmer gotacknowledged with while in Florida.



� After being caught, the creator of the viruswas sentenced to 20 months in federalprison and ordered to pay a fine of $5,000.The arrest represented a collaboration of FBI, New Jersey State Police andMonmouth Internet.



� Melissa had the ability to multiply onMicrosoft Word 97 and Word 2000, as wellas Microsoft Excel 97, 2000 and 2003. Inaddition, the virus had the ability to mass-mail itself from Microsoft Outlook 97 or Outlook 98.



I Love You ± May 2000

� Using a similar method as the Melissa, thecomputer virus dubbed ³I Love You´

managed to infect millions of computersaround the world in just one night.



� After authorities traced the virus theyfound that a young Filipino student wasbehind the attack. The young man wasreleased due to the fact that thePhilippines did not have any law thatwould prevent hacking and spreading

malware.



� This situation served as one of thepremises for creating the EuropeanUnion¶s global Cyber crime Treaty.



The Code Red worm ± July 2001

� The damages caused by the Code Redcomputer virus were estimated at a total of $2 billion. Code Red was developed touse the power of all computers it infectedagainst the official website of the WhiteHouse at a predetermined date.



Nimda ± 2001

� Shortly after the September 11 tragedythis computer virus infected hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide. Nimdawas considered to be one of the mostcomplicated viruses, having up to 5different methods of infecting

computers systems and duplicating itself.



SQL Slammer ± 2003

� SQL Slammer, also known as Sapphire,was launched on January 25, 2003. It wasa doozy of a worm that had a noticeablenegative impact upon global Internettraffic.



� With this remarkably effective way of spreading, Slammer infected 75,000computers in 10 minutes.



Blaster ± 2003

� The virus was detected on August 11 andspread rapidly, peaking in just two days.

� Hidden in the code of MSBLAST.EXE ²the virus¶ executable ´ were thesemessages: ³I just want to say LOVE YOUSAN!!´ and ³billy gates why do you make

this possible? Stop making money and fixyour software!!´



Sobig.F ± 2003

� The Sobig worm hit right on the heels of Blaster, making August 2003 a miserablemonth for corporate and home PC users.



� The virus infected host computers viainnocuously named e-mail attachmentssuch as application.pif and thank_you.pif.



� When activated, this worm transmitteditself to e-mail addresses discovered on ahost of local file types. The end result wasmassive amounts of Internet traffic.



� On September 10, 2003, the virusdeactivated itself and is no longer a threat.Microsoft has announced a $250,000bounty for anyone who identifies Sobig.F¶sauthor, but to date, the perpetrator has notbeen caught.



Bagle ± 2004

� The Bagle.B variant was designed to stopspreading after January 28, 2004, butnumerous other variants of the viruscontinue to plague users to this day.



� The real danger of Bagle (a.k.a. Beagle)has 60 to 100 variants.



MyDoom (2004)

� The worm, also known as Norvarg, spreaditself in a particularly devious manner:



� It transmitted itself as an attachment inwhat appeared to be an e-mail error message containing the text ³MailTransaction Failed.´ Clicking on theattachment spammed the worm to e-mailaddresses found in address books.



Sasser (2004)

� Sasser began spreading on April 30, 2004,and was destructive enough to shut downthe satellite communications for someFrench news agencies.



� It also resulted in the cancellation of several Delta airline flights and theshutdown of numerous companies¶systems worldwide.



� Sasser was not transmitted via e-mail andrequired no user interaction to spread.Instead the worm exploited a security flawin non-updated Windows 2000 andWindows XP systems.



� When successfully replicated, the wormwould actively scan for other unprotectedsystems and transmit itself to them.Infected systems experienced repeatedcrashes and instability.



Downadup ± 2009

� The latest and most dangerous virus is the³downadup´ worm, which was alsocalled ³Conficker´ .



� The computer security company F-Securestated that the computer virus has infected3.5 million computers worldwide.



� F-Secure stated that three of the mostaffected countries were China, Brazil andRussia

computer viruses in history

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