Computer viruses may not be aware of their fame and notoriety, but they certainly get their share of press. This article presents ten of the most famous computer viruses and thoughts on virus fame in the future.
Fame, Fear, and Loathing
Fame does not always equate to power, financial punch, or pervasiveness in the virus world. Media attention, AV software vendor marketing, and other factors influence what makes a virus famous, even if it’s not that damaging.
I have heard of some of these viruses, and despite my wide number of clients, friends, and exposure of my own computers over the years, I never saw or caught some of them.
As the Internet has become more and more a part of everyday life, and computing spreads to every phone, DVR, and other electronic device, the future holds potential for even more widespread and famous viruses than any of these. Let’s look at the top ten for clues to what the future may hold.
The Top Ten
1. ILOVEYOU - (2000) One of the most widespread and rapidly spreading viruses ever, the ILOVEYOU virus spread via e-mail, posing as an executable attachment sent by a friend from the target’s contact list.
2. Code Red - (2001) IIS on Windows servers were the target of this virus. It also launched denial of service (DoS) attacks.
3. Nimda - (2001) Nimda used seemingly every possible method to spread, and was very effective at doing so. Nimda is notable for being one of the fastest spreading and most widespread viruses ever.
4. Melissa - (1999) The Melissa virus is notable because it is a Word macro virus. It cleverly spread via e-mails sent to contacts from the infected users’ address books.
5. Sasser - (2004) Sasser exploited a buffer overflow and spread by connecting to port 445 on networked Windows systems. The chaos caused was possibly the worst ever, as systems restarted or crashed.
6. The Morris Internet Worm - (1988) The grandfather of computer worms, the Morris worm infected Unix systems and was notable for its “accidental” virulence.
7. Blaster - (2003) Blaster exploited a Windows operating system vulnerability and let users know of its presence with a system shutdown warning.
8. SQL Slammer - (2003) This tiny virus infected servers running Microsoft’s SQL Server Desktop Engine, and was very fast to spread.
9. Elk Cloner - (1982) Despite Apple’s marketing that their systems are less prone to viruses that was not always the case. Notable as possible the first personal computer virus, Elk Cloner infected the boot sector of Apple II floppies.
10. Creeper - (1971) This is noted as possibly the first ever computer virus. It infected computers on ARPANET. Mostly harmless, the concept of Creeper has infected the minds of rogue programmers through today.
Did I miss any you think should have made the list?
Future Candidates
Of phones, portable music players, game consoles, DVRs, car computers and GPS devices, only phones so far have been a significant target of virus writers. None of these systems has a well-developed anti-virus platform and network yet all of them can connect to the Internet and are potentially vulnerable. The ubiquity of Windows systems makes Windows CE devices a prime and continuing target.
