| Viruses mark 20th anniversary
23 January, 2006
By Dave Chappelle
Jan. 19, 2006 marked the twentieth year of existence of the
PC virus.
The boot sector virus "Brain," which infected computers
via floppy disk, was first detected back in January 1986.
While Brain was relatively harmless compared to threats faced
today, it signaled the beginning of the current virus situation.
Nowadays boot sector viruses may be as rare as floppy disks,
but they held our attention from 1986 to 1995. Infection required
actually putting a file on a hard disk, so floppy disks were
the main sources of transmission, but file sharing via bulletin
boards and electronic data transfer were also known. Viruses
would only become well-known months or even years after release.
With the release of Windows 95 came the development of macro
viruses, which exploited vulnerabilities in that operating
system. From the moment when a virus was discovered to when
it became a global problem required about one month.
As the popularity of e-mail increased, so did e-mail worms.
In just one day, Loveletter, aka ILOVEYOU, spread havoc and
alleged massive financial loss before it was brought under
control.
In the 21st Century, the transmission time window shrank
from one day to one hour, in what is known as a "zero-day
threat." Network worms like Blaster and Sasser automatically
propagated and indiscriminately infected every unprotected
online computer in their paths.
"Blended threats" combined methods of attack; for
example, displaying characteristics of both viruses and worms
while also exploiting network and system vulnerabilities.
However, the most important change over the past two decades
has not been in the types of viruses or amount of malware,
but rather the motives of the virus writers.
"Certainly the most significant change in has been the
evolution of virus writing hobbyists into criminally operated
gangs bent on financial gain," said F-Secure's Chief
Research Officer Mikko Hypponen. "And this trend is showing
no signs of stopping."
At present there are an estimated 150,000 virus-like threats,
and the number continues to increase.
"There already are indications that malware authors
will target laptop WLANs as the next vector for automatic
spreading worms," said Hypponen.
"Whatever the next step might be, it will be interesting
to see what kind of viruses we will be talking about in another
twenty years time -- computer viruses infecting houses, perhaps?"
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