Top 10 computer virus attack of all time

August 10th, 2009 |Ajay M | 4,607 views | Featured, Internet | Comments (48)

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From the day computer was invented, the notorious minds are busy countering the development and create havoc. The malicious programs written by them to cause widespread damage to computers across the world are known as virus. During the early days these programs were aimed towards stand alone PCs as there were very less number of privileged people having access to Internet and only a fraction of the PCs were part of network. As the computing technology improved and Internet played a major role in people’s life, the virus creators aimed attacking through Internet to cause more damage in lesser time. especially the last decade has seen enormous amount of damage caused due to VIRUS. Here I have listed the 10 most notorious virus attacks till date.

Elk Cloner (1982)

Elk Cloner is regarded as the first virus to hit personal computers worldwide, “Elk Cloner” spread through Apple II floppy disks. The program was authored by Rich Skrenta, a ninth-grade student then, who wanted to play a joke on his schoolmates. The virus was put on a gaming disk, which could be used 49 times. On 50th time, instead of starting the game, it opened a blank screen that read a poem: “Elk Cloner: The program with a personality” It will get on all your disks. It will infiltrate your chips. Yes it’s Cloner! It will stick to you like glue. It will modify RAM too. Send in the Cloner!” The computer would then be infected. Elk Cloner was though a self-replicating virus like most other viruses, it bore little resemblance to the malicious programmes of today.

Brain (1986)

Brain was the first virus to hit computers running Microsoft’s then popular operating system MS-DOS. The virus was written by two Pakistani brothers, Basit Farooq Alvi and his brother Amjad Farooq Alvi and left the phone number of their computer repair shop. A boot-sector virus, Brain infected the boot records of 360K floppy disks. The virus would fill unused space on the floppy disk so that it could not be used. The first “stealth” virus, it hid itself from any detection by disguising the infected space on the disk. Due to its partial non-destructiveness, Brain often went undetected as many times users paid little attention to the slow speed of floppy disk access. The virus was also known as Lahore, Pakistani and Pakistani Brain. BusinessWeek magazine called the virus the Pakistani flu. The brothers told TIME magazine they had written it to protect their medical software from piracy and it was supposed to target copyright infringers only.

Morris (1988)

Written by a Cornell University graduate student, Robert Tappan Morris, the virus infected an estimated 6,000 university and military computers connected over the Internet. Incidentally, Morris’s father was a top government computer-security expert, The computers Morris invaded were part of the Arpanet, an international grid of telephone lines, buried cables, and satellite hookups established by the Department of Defense in 1969. Interestingly, Morris later claimed that the worm was not written to cause damage, but to gauge the size of the Internet. An unintended consequence of the code, however, led to the damage caused.

CIH (1998)

Chernobyl virus also known as CIH or Spacefiller was first detected in 1998, however, it first triggered in April 1999, 13th the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster (which took place in Ukrainian). It was conceived by a University graduate from Taiwan called Chen Ing Hau (CIH). One of the most harmful viruses, it overwrites critical information on infected system drives. The virus was reportedly the first virus known to have the power to damage computer hardware, with virus attempting to erase the hard drive and overwrite the system’s BIOS as well. The virus is also known as “space filler virus,” due to its ability to clandestinely take up file space on computers and prevent anti-virus software from running. The malicious program caused widespread damage in several Asian countries paralyzing thousands of computers.

Melissa (1999)

‘Melissa’ was one of the first viruses to spread over email. When users opened an attachment, the virus sent copies of itself to the first 50 people in the user’s address book, covering the globe within hours. The virus known as Melissa — believed to have been named after a Florida stripper its creator David L. Smith knew, caused more than $80m in damage after it was launched in March 1999. Computers became infected when users received a particular e-mail and opened a Word document attached to it. First found on March 26, 1999, Melissa shut down Internet mail systems at several enterprises across the world after being they got clogged with infected e-mails carrying the worm. The worm was first distributed in the Usenet discussion group alt.sex. The creator of the virus, David Smith, was sentenced to 20 months imprisonment by a United States court.

Comment by Sourav on 11 August 2009:

Interesting info.
Any news about virus and security always takes my attention. I also like to read about AI.

Thanks

Comment by Elizabeth on 13 August 2009:

I am often on the Internet and I have a huge problem with the viruses. I am satisfied with this information because I did not know anything before.

Comment by Sunil Jain on 13 August 2009:

Thanks for the info
Bookmarked it

Comment by Joe Clark on 15 August 2009:

I am always very grateful to those kind fellows who take the time to warn us of these malicious viruses, I wish if the authorities can come up with better ways to find those people who spread these viruses and give them the severest punishment possible.

Thanks for a great article.

Comment by PC fans on 16 August 2009:

Good archieve… All the virus very dangerous for our PC’s..
So update antivirus regurarly… Thanks for info…

Comment by FreeLife on 17 August 2009:

viruses were totally annoying…I am actually keep searching of an anti virus which is the best.. I’m always reformatting my pc when the anti virus I used is not deleting the virus destroying my computer…=(

Comment by James Murdoch on 18 August 2009:

That is a very informative article about viruses, when do one wonders that the when and were who write this virus. I update my PC regularly and twice my PC has been hit by virus and its with the help of Norton only i was able to detect them and get rod of them.Always there comes live updates of anitvirus but most of the time we never pay attention to there name and origination but it was really interesting to know the history and origination of the viruses.

Comment by Ventrilo on 18 August 2009:

This is a very interesting article. I have been sent viruses to my computers (at work/home/school) so many times. Using antivirus almost daily can help but new viruses come up. Thanks for sharing.

Comment by Marian on 18 August 2009:

Thank you for this post.
Very interesting read.

Regards.

Comment by Joomla Expert on 19 August 2009:

Good work.
It is very interesting. I really enjoyed your unique article. I will wait for your such interesting posts.

Comment by Alicia on 19 August 2009:

Great Information! I am stunned to know about these different infections, and each story seems very interesting.

Comment by fast on 19 August 2009:

I have bad memories of the Melissa virus .

Comment by Kris on 22 August 2009:

Interesting to read about the old ones. I had never heard of the Morris or Elk viruses.

Comment by Roger on 23 August 2009:

Great info you have there. All those viruses are a great problem for windows, if you want to avoid viruses and antiviruses as well you should try linux

Comment by ottoboettcher1 on 24 August 2009:

Viruses often attack your computer especially when you are fan of downloading stuffs over the internet.

Comment by rotem on 24 August 2009:

Unfortunately, I remember the Melissa virus.

Comment by Adam on 25 August 2009:

This is a neat collection! I believe it takes a lot of energy and brains to come up with a virus, but it takes even more energy to avoid it.

Comment by Ara on 25 August 2009:

Thank you for the information its very helpful. In related to this problem, we should update and scan our computer with a reliable antivirus or spyware so that we can protect our computer from it. By the way what antivirus do you use?

Comment by Aspire on 26 August 2009:

What about the latest fatal virus… i searched on net to find any virus attacking during the near past … but could not find any real threat…. was there any???? u tell me please…

Comment by Brenda Cope on 26 August 2009:

Interesting info! Recently I experienced a virus named Khatarnakh.exe It was so annoying virus that it completely disabled my control panel. More over it creates a duplicate folder of each folder present in hard drive. Finally I had to formatted my hard drive. I heard that some Pakistani created this virus and it was found on March 2009.

Comment by plumber mosma on 27 August 2009:

Wow Thats Just amazing Never knew People would Do things like that and They were so smart at That Time

Comment by Recover Files on 27 August 2009:

Thanks for sharing this. I am always a victim of viruses and some of them are mentioned here. What’s the number 1 antivirus software now?

Comment by Rachel on 28 August 2009:

Man, do I remember the Melissa virus. That one sure ruined my day.. And Chernobyl, yeah, that one pretty much ruined my life lol. Great list, had a good time reading it.

Comment by Colm on 1 September 2009:

I remember Melissa oh what a pain. I was working in a company that had 500 users. Man, was that a long few days getting rid of this.

Comment by john on 2 September 2009:

Cool list, I remember just about all of them. But one small thing: do anyone here remember the name of the virus that made all the letters on your screen fall to the bottom of the screen? Kinda funny, actually, just this big pile on the bottom of the screen.

Comment by Game Cheats on 2 September 2009:

The blaster virus was the one to hit me the worst. That clock ticking down the last 30 seconds you could access the internet drove me insane as I only had one computer and had to visit the library and find the patch for it!
I am glad that is the only one I have experienced.

Comment by Computer Repair on 11 September 2009:

Ohhh this is a touchy subject. I think I speak for the masses when I say I despise and loathe viruses and the people that create them. I was affected badly by the Melissa virus and wanted to seriously hurt someone. However, when that virus infected my computer, it introduced me to data backup and I have backed up my files ever since that disaster.

Comment by Ray Burton on 11 September 2009:

None of these viruses got me, and I sure hope not in the future. They can really ruin not just your day and your files, pretty much your life too. Especially if you’re a Virtual Assistant Philippines, I shudder to think at the potential damage it can cost.

Comment by cedric on 12 September 2009:

thank you the information was really good
it just increaseing our knowledge in computer field

Comment by Peter Bang on 14 September 2009:

This one, CIH (1998) sounds very nasty and mean… thank you for sharing this list, I’m using a very good antivirus program, so far no problems with it.

Comment by Akalana on 20 September 2009:

I remember just about all of them. I was affected badly by the Melissa virus and wanted to seriously hurt someone. However, when that virus infected my computer.

Comment by Roger on 20 September 2009:

Great list, fun read. I remember most of them, because I actually had most of them. Haha.. However, I couldn`t disagree more with the guy farther up here, he who said that you should try Linux instead. Viruses is hardly a problem anymore unless you`re a complete moron that only download from questionable websites. I havent had a single virus since Melissa, and I download a lot. Having the right programs on you computer is the key.

Comment by Kelly on 23 September 2009:

Those aren’t really 10 viruses, I only counted 5 of them. Does this article have a second part? Anyway, it’s some nice and funny info to know, but I would like to also know about viruses like Code Red or Nimda.

Comment by adt on 23 September 2009:

I love reading about old viruses that hit. Melissa hit some people I know and was a bitch (pun intended) to get off. Thanks for the post.

Comment by bobbac on 24 September 2009:

Haha.. However, I couldn`t disagree more with the guy farther up here, he who said that you should try Linux instead. Viruses is hardly a problem anymore unless you`re a complete moron that only download from questionable websites. I havent had a single virus since Melissa, and I download a lot. Having the right programs on you computer is the key.

Comment by India on 25 September 2009:

Melissa is one of the virus that attacked my system many times. I removed all the times from my system, but don’t know it comes again.

Comment by Rohit on 26 September 2009:

Well I love to read this things since I suffered lots due to this and I wouldn’t face those problem again! Well I found only 5 attacks here. Where are others?

Comment by Matt on 29 September 2009:

Knock on wood I have not fallen victim to any of these in the past, and since I’ve moved to Mac hope to never worry about them again You do have to wonder about folks who write these things and what sort of emotional issues they have!

Comment by John on 30 September 2009:

Very useful.Thanks.:)

Comment by Vibiz-ICT on 30 September 2009:

What about Kaspersky? it s good and Powerfull?

Comment by Kredittkort on 8 October 2009:

Funny read. I used to have this geeky computer buddy who claimed to know all about computer safety and such, he got just about all of them. I`m like the greenes computer dude around, and I didnt get any of them.. Gotta laugh.. =)

Comment by Jan Repka on 21 October 2009:

Hi everyone!

I have few questions about computer viruses.

-How computer viruses are contracted?

-What viruses may do to a computer?

-How viruses may affect files?

Please reply, thanks

Comment by Cracker on 30 October 2009:

Virus are getting clever, more and more viruses now use a rootkit, which makes them harder to detect by AV.

The crackers who code these are very clever though, I am in awe of their genius coding skills!

Comment by Josh on 30 October 2009:

Very cool post, anyone actually have any of these problems?

Comment by WebBanshee on 30 October 2009:

Wow , this was good work.Very interesting.

Sadly Viruses and similar parasites are part of our life in this century.

Thanx for this list

Comment by Techgirl Somer on 30 October 2009:

Great to see the evolution and interesting that Elk Cloner was on an Apple. Do Macs even get viruses now? Will you continue the timeline? I’d love to see info from 1999 until now.

Comment by kredittkort on 6 November 2009:

I got a virus on my computer today. Really annoying stuff. I wish people who made these viruses could spend their time doing something useful instead….