The most popular viruses at all time

The most popular viruses at all time 

by Elma Jagonoy

What is a computer viruses? A computer virus is a umbrella term for many types of malicious code. Technically virus is a pieces of programming code, usually disguises as something else that cause unexpected and usually undesirable events. Often attached to files,so that when the infected file is opened,the virus executes deliver a “Payload” or malicious software that causes the computer to perform in an unexpected way,example,modify or even reformat the hard drive. Computer viruses does not spread itself from computer to computer, Must be passed on to the other users through infected e-mail document attachments, programs on diskettes and shared files.

There are top 10 worst computer viruses of all time. First is the Morris worm, Robert Morris in 1998. He is a university student unleashed worm which affected 10% of all the computers connected to the internet. Slowing them down to a halt. Robert Morris is now an associate professor at MIT.

Second is the Concept Virus. Accidentally shipped on a CD-ROM supplied by Microsoft from 1995, and was the first virus to infect Microsoft Word documents. After many days it became the most widespread virus the world had ever seen, taking advantage of the fact that computer users shared documents via email.

Third is the CIH. The Chernobyl virus triggers on April 26 each year, the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. It overwrites a chip inside PCs effectively paralysing the entire computer.

Fourth is the Anna Kournikova worm posed as a picture of the tennis player, but was in fact a virus written by Jan de Wit, an obsessed admirer from the Netherlands. He ended up receiving a community service sentence.

Fifth is the ILOVEYOU. The Love Bug flooded internet users with ILOVEYOU messages in May 2000, forwarding itself to everybody in the user's address book. It was designed to steal internet access passwords for its Filipino creator.

Sixth is The Melissa virus, written by David L Smith in homage to a Florida stripper, was the first successful email-aware virus and inserted a quote from The Simpsons in to Word documents. Smith was later sentenced to jail for causing over $80 million worth of damage.

Seven is the Blaster worm. The Blaster worm launched a denial of service attack against Microsoft's website in 2003, and infected millions of computers around the world by exploiting a security hole in Microsoft's software. Its author has never been found.

Eight is the Netsky and Sasser. Sven Jaschan, a German teenager, was found guilty of writing the Netsky and Sasser worms. Jaschan was found to be responsible for 70 per cent of all the malware seen spreading over the internet at the time, but escaped prison and was eventually hired by a security company as an "ethical hacker".

Nine is the OSX/RSPLUG Trojan. In November 2007, the first example of financially-motivated malware for Apple Macs was discovered in the wild. The launch of the OSX/RSPlug Trojan increased fears that Apple's platform may be targeted more by hackers in the future.

Last is the Storm worm.The Storm worm, originally posing as breaking news of bad weather hitting Europe, infected computers around the world in 2007. Millions of infected PCs were taken over by hackers and used to spread spam and steal identities.

When was the first computer virus discovered? According to Elk Cloner in 1981 for the Apple II Systems was created by Richard Skrenta. Apple DOS 3.3 was the first infected and spread to other computers using floppy disk transfer. In history, Elk Virus was the first computer virus to cause a massive outbreak.

ILOVEYOU is the most dangerous computer virus. Why? It because ILOVEYOU virus is considered one of the most virulent computer virus ever created and it’s not hard to see.

What is the first virus? The first virus is the Creeper virus. Because it was the first defected on ARPANET. The forerunner of the internet in the early 1970’s. Creeper was an experimental self-replicating program written by Bob Thomas at BBN Technologies in 1971. Creeper was used the ARPANET to infect DEC PDP-10 computers running the TENEX operating system.

What are the types of Computer Viruses? First the Browser Hijacker. One type of virus is called a browser hijacker. Directory Virus. A second type of virus is known as a Directory Virus and are also called File System Virus or Cluster Virus.

Why virus created? It because to make a trouble and causing a problem. Computer viruses is not easily avoid it because it also easily to spread it and infected on the other computer.