Who and when coined the term computer virus? What is a computer virus and when did it first appear?

Viruses, Trojans, worms and other malware - there are always plenty of these creatures on the Internet. Let's figure out what a virus is, how it lives and how it harms our computers.

Computer viruses: what are they?

A virus is an independent program that is installed against the user’s will on his computer. The virus installs itself into software or the operating system, damages the software, and then continues to spread throughout the system. A human biological virus that causes disease does the same thing, hence the name.

The word "virus" is often used by both ordinary users and professionals to refer to any malware. However, a virus in the classical sense is precisely a pest that breaks a PC and disrupts its normal operation.

In addition to viruses, there areand other malware. So, for example, there are Trojans - programs that allow attackers to remotely use your computer for their own purposes without your knowledge. There are worms - replicating viruses whose goal is to install themselves on as many computers as possible. Shpionware, adware and ransomwarealso fall into the category of malware.

Viruses have been around since the earliest stages computer history. When the Internet did not yet exist, viruses were transmitted to other computers by transferring infected files on a floppy disk from a computer to another computer. Now that data is transmitted mainly over the Internet, it is much easier to become infected with a virus.

A computer virus can be “caught” in different ways. For example, web pages and email attachments can be used to directly launch a virus into a system. Often a virus is built into a program downloaded from the Internet, which “releases” the virus into the wild after you install it.

When a virus starts, it infects many files, that is, it copies its malicious code into them in order to exist on the computer for as long as possible. They can be at risk as simple as Word documents, as well as scripts, program libraries and all other files on your computer.

What damage does a computer virus cause?

Viruses can cause a wide variety of harm. In most cases, they delete files or permanently damage them. If this happens to an important system file, you will not be able to start the operating system after infection.

Damage to physical equipment is also possible, but is quite rare. For example, among other things, a virus can overclock a video card, causing it to overheat and lead to failure.

Simply destroying files does not bring financial benefits to criminals, so viruses have become uninteresting to them. Moreover, today there are much more profitable malware - the same ransomware or adware, the so-called “adware”.

How to recognize viruses?

A real virus, written by a professional, prevents the user from knowing that the computer is infected. Or the user may only realize it when it is too late.

However, there are some tips:

• If your computer suddenly becomes noticeably slower, this could be a sign of a virus.
• It will help you find and remove the virus antivirus scanner. There are many free programs to scan your computer for viruses.
• Antivirus software or will help you prevent viruses from entering your PC.

In the next article we will tell you about the best antivirus software for the operating room Windows systems and which antivirus is the most productive.

ABOUT mobile antiviruses for Android you can .

A computer virus is usually understood as a program introduced into a computer without the user’s knowledge, which performs unauthorized (harmful) actions and is capable of “multiplying.” The last property – the ability to create copies of itself – is what distinguishes a virus from other malicious programs.
This definition is not always followed: viruses are often called any malicious programs. The names themselves antivirus program", "antivirus companies" speak of a broader interpretation of the concept that is accepted in everyday life.

ORIGIN OF COMPUTER VIRUSES

Prototypes of computer viruses include programs with a completely different purpose than modern viruses. One such prototype is the game "Darwin", created at a time when computers were huge, difficult to operate and expensive machines owned by large companies or government computing and research centers. The game consisted of programs written by different players in assembly language (programming language) being loaded into the computer’s memory and “fighting” for resources. The winner was the player whose programs “captured” all the memory.

Richard Skrenta

With the advent of the first personal computers and the development of network infrastructure, conditions appeared for the development of real computer viruses. One of the first is considered to be a virus written in 1981 by 15-year-old Richard Skrenta for Apple II computers (the virus made text blink and displayed messages on the screen).

Amjad Farooq Alvi

An epidemic of computer virus infections began in 1987. The first epidemic was caused by the Brain virus. "Brain" became the first computer virus for MS-DOS (operating system) and the first invisible virus. It was written by software brothers Basit and Amjad Farooq Alvi from Pakistan, who worked for a sales company software products"Computer service "Brain" (hence the name of the virus: in translation from English brain - brain) and decided to use the virus to find out the level of computer "piracy" in relation to their company in the country. The virus spread beyond the borders of Pakistan and infected computers across to the whole world.
In 1988, the epidemic was caused by an unknown programmer from Israel. The virus, called "Jerusalem", found itself simultaneously in the computer networks of many commercial firms, government organizations and educational institutions. His task was to destroy all files running on the infected computer on Friday the 13th: and on May 13, 1988, reports of thousands of incidents involving “Jerusalem” came from all over the planet.

Robert Morris

That same year, Robert Morris, who studied at Cornell University, created a program later called the Morris Worm, which paralyzed more than 6,000 computer systems in the USA (including NASA computers).

A floppy disk containing the Morris worm source code is kept at the Museum of Science in Boston.

At certain intervals, the program overwrote its copy. The Morris worm was one of the first known programs to exploit a buffer overflow (a phenomenon where a program writes data beyond the allocated buffer in memory), which remains the most popular method of hacking computer systems to this day. Robert Morris faced a penalty of five years in prison and a fine of $250,000. The court, taking into account mitigating circumstances, sentenced him to three years probation, a 10 thousand dollar fine and 400 hours public works.
Until a certain point, new viruses appeared infrequently, so many considered them to be fiction. It is said that in 1988, the famous programmer Peter Norton said that a computer virus is a myth, similar to tales of crocodiles living in the sewers of New York. However, the growth rate of new viruses and the consequences of their spread have forced everyone to recognize their existence, as well as to pay attention to the problem of large companies countering them. Already in 1990, one of the most popular antiviruses, Simantec Norton Antivirus, was released under the name Norton.
According to Message Labs, if in 1999, on average, one new virus was recorded per hour, then in 2000 the time for the appearance of a new virus was reduced to three minutes, and already in 2004 - to several seconds.
Over time, the purpose of writing viruses has also changed - hooliganism or self-affirmation has been replaced by pragmatic goals.

TYPES OF COMPUTER VIRUSES

To date, there is no single recognized classification of viruses. Possible grounds for classification are:

Affected objects (file viruses, boot viruses, script viruses, macro viruses, viruses that infect source, network worms);
technologies for creating viruses (polymorphic viruses, invisible viruses, rootkits);
functions of a malicious program (hacking programs, keyboard monitoring programs, programs for connecting a computer to a network without the user’s knowledge, etc.);
the language in which the virus is written (assembly, high-level programming language, scripting language, etc.);
operating systems and platforms affected by viruses.

The first viruses that were popular before the massive spread of the Internet were file viruses. Today, programs are known that infect all types of executable files in any operating system. In Windows, files with EXE, COM and MSI extensions, drivers (SYS), batch files(BAT) and dynamic libraries (DLL).
Boot viruses were also one of the first to appear. As the name suggests, such viruses infect not files, but boot sectors hard drives.
With the development of the Internet, network viruses appeared. According to antivirus companies, it is different kinds Network worms are a major threat today. Their main feature is working with various network protocols and using the capabilities of global and local networks allowing them to transmit their code to remote systems.

VIRUS NAME

The computer virus received its name by analogy with biological viruses. It is believed that Gregory Benford was the first to call a program a “virus” in a science fiction story he published in 1970. The term was introduced into scientific use by Frederick Cohen and Leonard Eidleman in the late 80s.
Each virus also has its own name. We hear it when we learn about another epidemic. Where does the name come from? Having discovered a new virus, antivirus companies give it names in accordance with the classifications adopted by that company.
Often the name is given based on the characteristics of the virus itself:

Place of detection of the virus;
text strings contained in the body of the virus;
method of delivery to the user;
action.

SOME NOTORIOUS MALWARE

Michelangelo virus. He gained fame due to apocalyptic predictions in the media. One American antivirus company said that the virus, which was activated on March 6, 1992 (the birthday of sculptor Michelangelo Buonarroti), would destroy information on several million computers. Although the actual danger of the virus and its prevalence have been greatly exaggerated, after this statement appeared, sales of anti-antivirus manufacturers virus programs increased several times.

Chernobyl virus. This is a resident virus (infects computer memory and intercepts all OS calls to objects suitable for infection), running on the Windows 95/98 operating system, written by Taiwanese student Chen Ying Hao. On April 26, 1999, the anniversary of the Chernobyl accident, the virus became active and destroyed data on hard drives, and also damaged the contents of the BIOS chips of the infected computers. The author of the virus most likely did not connect the Chernobyl tragedy with his virus. The date of its activation (April 26) is the birthday of the virus (on this day in 1998, its first version was released, which did not leave Taiwan). According to some estimates, about half a million personal computers around the world were affected by the virus. Chen Ying Hao was not prosecuted for creating the virus because, according to Taiwanese laws at the time, he did not commit any illegal acts.

Worm "I love you" This worm discovered itself in early May 2000. It was distributed via email. The subject line of the infected letter read: “I love you.” When activated, the worm sent itself from infected computers to email addresses found in the address book. At the time of its appearance, the worm was called “the most destructive” in the entire history of malware.

Mail virus "Kournikova". In February 2001, an epidemic of an email virus occurred, which became known as “Kurinikova”. The worm was spread via an email attachment that recipients mistook for an image of Anna Kournikova. The virus is mentioned in the popular American TV series Friends. One of the characters (Chandler Bing), interested in Kournikova's photographs, opens an infected letter on the computer of his scientist friend, who, on the eve of his speech at a conference, loses the only copy of his scientific report because of this.
It is noteworthy that the author of this virus himself came to the police. He stated that he is not a hacker and does not know how to program, and the virus was made using special program, which he found on the Internet. This “virus writer” from the Netherlands was sentenced to 75 days in prison or 150 hours of community service.

Worm "Lavsan". In 2004, an epidemic of unprecedented scale was caused by the Lavsan worm. According to Microsoft, more than 16 million systems were affected. The worm did not directly pose a significant threat to the infected computer. However, it disrupted the normal operation of data transmission channels, as it sent virus code. In addition, a computer infected with a worm attacked the website windowsupdate.com, which contains updates for the operating system. Windows systems. The worm also contained the following message to Bill Gates: “Billy, why are you allowing this to happen? Stop making money and fix your programs!”

The 19-year-old creator of one of the modifications of this worm from Minnesota, Jeffrey Lee Parson, was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Every person in the world who has had even the slightest experience with a computer has heard such a phrase as “ computer virus

" And from this phrase it becomes clear that nothing good should be expected from this. Computer viruses have existed since the early stages of computer technology, and the first one was created in 1981 by a schoolboy named Richard Skrenta. This virus was spread using floppy disks, popular at the time. And because of its ability to clone itself onto other media, it was named Elk Cloner. But unlike the viruses of our time, it was relatively harmless and only displayed text in poetic form on the monitor. But quite a few years have passed and viruses, one might say, have evolved and are capable of multiplying in the operating system and even evolving and also being in incubation period

, waiting for certain commands laid down by the programmer. Only it infects and harms the “health” of the PC. There are viruses that can be removed third party programs
, and there are some that will be deleted only when the system is reinstalled. Today, humanity knows more than fifty thousand types of dangerous programs. To avoid this, you should always keep one anti-virus program active. It doesn’t matter what it is, third-party or built-in, purchased or free, it will always warn about infected software and advise you not to install it. It is also worth having a program on your PC to protect against viruses on the Internet, or an extension in your browser. So what is he like? Let's take a look. Computer virus is a small program that can clone itself and introduce its clones into the system code of other programs, or even replace them, causing irreparable harm to personal data stored on the PC. The main function of viruses is to delete data from hard drive or their theft for the purpose of transmission via the Internet. Viruses also constantly work in hidden mode, constantly overloading the system, which can lead to shortages, overheating of the processor and hard drive. Or even crash your computer. So think about it, if an initially well-functioning computer begins to “slow down”, then it is worth thinking about the presence of malware in the OS and it would not be superfluous, for prevention, to scan for viruses.
What is a virus and what is used to “eat” it, we have sorted it out. Now I would like to know who needs to create parasitic programs and why.
There are several types of people who create virus software:
1. Beginner programmers, the main component is teenagers and the creation of viruses, one of the opportunities to assert oneself. These types of viruses are easy to create and do not pose a great danger to the computer, but they are extremely rare.
2. Professional programmers, the purpose of creating malware for them is malicious intent, which consists of stealing personal data or permanently deleting it from the media.
A virus can enter a computer in different ways. This could be a floppy disk, flash drive, or a file downloaded from the Internet. Attackers can also distribute them through messaging services, sending a link to a dubious site. Let's look at some types of viruses and the purpose of their presence in the system.
1. Trojan. It received this name because of the well-known myth of Achilles. This parasite hides itself in other programs and, once installed, begins collecting information from the PC, such as passwords, and forwards it to its creator.
2. Worm. The essence of this virus is to slow down the computer by cluttering it. The worm mainly enters the PC through messaging.
3. Encryptors. This malware encrypts all data and then offers to buy an access key, but the goal of the program is not enrichment, but destruction of data, one of the most common methods.
4. Rootkit. Programs created with the goal of penetrating into someone else's PC remotely and erasing traces of being there.
5. Extortionists. Completely block access to the computer, requiring translation cash about its creator. But the likelihood that the computer will be unlocked is very small. It’s better to find an antivirus that specializes in this topic and figure it out.
6. Spies. From the name it is clear that the program was created for the purpose of tracking, remembering visited pages, correspondence in social networks. networks and other actions performed on computers.
Competent behavior on the Internet, the presence of an antivirus program and the most will help protect against all this computer ailment. effective method, timely updating of the operating system.

, and there are some that will be deleted only when the system is reinstalled. Today, humanity knows more than fifty thousand types of dangerous programs. To avoid this, you should always keep one anti-virus program active. It doesn’t matter what it is, third-party or built-in, purchased or free, it will always warn about infected software and advise you not to install it. It is also worth having a program on your PC to protect against viruses on the Internet, or an extension in your browser. So what is he like? Let's take a look.- this is special computer program, which is distinguished by its ability to reproduce. In addition, the virus can damage or destroy the data of the user on whose behalf the infected program is launched.

Some inexperienced users consider spyware, Trojans and even spam to be viruses.

Gradually, viruses began to spread and introduced executable program code into themselves, or replaced other programs. For some time it was generally accepted that a virus, as a program, can only infect programs, and any changes to non-programs are only data damage.

But later hackers proved that not only executable code can be a virus. Viruses written in language appeared batch files, macro viruses that were introduced into office programs through macros.

Then viruses began to appear that took advantage of vulnerabilities in popular programs; they spread using special code that was embedded in the data sequence.

There are many versions about the birth of the first computer virus. But based on the facts, we can say that there were no viruses on Charles Babbage’s first computer, but in the mid-1970s, on IBM They already had 360/370.

In the 1940s, the works of John von Neumann on self-reproducing mathematical automata became known. This can be considered the starting point in the history of computer viruses. In subsequent years, various scientists conducted a number of studies aimed at studying and developing von Neumann's ideas. Naturally, they did not strive to develop a computer virus, but to study and improve the capabilities of computers.

In 1962, at the American company Bell Telephone Laboratories, a group of engineers created the game “Darwin”. The essence of the game was the confrontation between two programs that had the functions of reproduction, space exploration and destruction. The winner was the one whose program deleted all copies of the opponent's program and captured the battlefield.

But within a few years it became clear that the theory of self-replicating structures could be used not only for the entertainment of engineers.

A Brief History of Computer Viruses

Today, computer viruses are usually classified into three types:

Traditional viru c - when it gets into the computer, it reproduces itself and begins to cause problems, such as the destruction of files. The greatest damage was caused by the I Love You virus in 2000 - $8 billion.

« Worms- get into computers through the network and force the email distribution program to send letters with a virus to all addresses stored in memory. The Blaster worm in 2003 managed to infect more than a million computers.

« Trojan horse"- the program does not harm the computer, but once in the system, it provides hackers with access to all information on the computer, as well as control of the computer. In 2002, using the QAZ Trojan program, hackers managed to gain access to Microsoft program codes.

1949 Scientist John von Naumann developed a mathematical theory of creating self-replicating programs, which was the first theory of creating computer viruses.

1950 A group of American engineers creates a game: programs must take away computer space from each other. These programs were the forerunners of viruses.

1969 First created computer network ARPANET, to which computers of leading US research centers and laboratories were connected.

Late 1960s. The first viruses appear. The victim of the first virus created for extraction was the Univax 1108 computer.

1974 A commercial analogue of ARPANET was created - the Telenet network.

1975 Through new network The Creeper, the first network virus in history, has spread. To neutralize it, the first antivirus program was written - The Reeper.

1979 Engineers at the Xerox Research Center created the first computer worm.

1981 Apple computers are affected by the Elk Cloner virus, which spreads through pirated computer games.

1983 The term “computer virus” was used for the first time.

1986 The Brain was created - the first virus for the IBM PC.

1988 A “worm” was created that massively infected ARPANET.

1991 The VCS v 1.0 program was written, which was intended only for creating viruses.

1999 First world epidemic. Virus Melissa Tens of thousands of computers were infected. This triggered a surge in demand for antiviruses.

May 2000. Virus I Love You!, hit millions of computers in a few hours.

2002 Programmer David Smith was sentenced to prison.

2003 A new speed record was set by the “Slammer” worm, which infected 75 thousand computers in 10 minutes.

Actually, like everything progressive, all new ideas are first invented by talented people, science fiction writers and theoretical scientists, and then they are brought to life. This is what happened with computer viruses.

People first started talking about computer viruses back in the late 40s of the 20th century. The famous scientist John von Neumann at New York University gave a series of lectures “The Theory of Organizations of Complex Automata,” talking about automata and machines and their ability to copy themselves. Subsequently, viruses were often discussed in books and films, mainly from the point of view of science fiction. At the same time, computer viruses were often assigned some mystical powers. People thought that computer viruses would have artificial intelligence, will be able to take over the world and control the machines on their own.

In the second half of the last century, scientists were already quite actively experimenting with viruses. But these were exclusively laboratory studies.

The first virus in the “wild” environment, that is, on a computer real users, was created for PC by Apple only in 1981. This virus was created by a 15-year-old boy who did not pursue a single selfish goal. The virus did not do anything bad, it only displayed images on the screen indicating that the computer was infected with the ELK CLONER virus.

The first viruses for IBM PC-compatible computers, that is, those that we use in everyday life, were created in 1987 in Pakistan by two programmer brothers who even indicated their names, address and telephone number in the virus code. They did this simply to measure how often their program would be copied from one computer to another. It is important to note that at that time it was an absolutely innocent type of activity.

Later, young people more actively seized on the idea of ​​​​creating computer viruses; these teenagers are usually called cyberpunks. They gradually became uninterested in writing simple viruses; they wanted to prove themselves and become famous. Thus, the first destructive computer viruses appeared, the main goal of which was the complete destruction of information on the computer. It was this type of virus that greatly frightened the world community and actually prompted the creation of the antivirus industry as such.

The first serious epidemics began in 1987. For example, the Jerusalem virus received the name of the city in which it was invented. Every Friday the 13th, this virus deleted all files that could be running on users’ computers, and since there was no Internet then, there was nowhere to download new files from. The epidemic was so serious that most companies were prohibited from turning on computers on Friday the 13th.

Then viruses gradually developed, and viruses appeared for almost all existing operating systems. There are viruses for Windows, MacOS, Linux, Unix, Android, Symbian, iOS and others. Almost all types of operating systems that make it possible to install additional software, there are viruses. The first polymorphic viruses appeared, that is, viruses that can change their code after infecting a new file, encryption viruses. With the advent of networks, new types of malware appeared: network worms, Trojans, downloaders, rootkits, but we will talk about them later.

With the advent of the Windows 95 operating system, the developers of this OS declared that it was generally impossible to create viruses for it and that it would be as secure as possible. But a month later, Microsoft management was shown that they were in a big hurry with such a loud statement.

I would like to recall several of the largest high-profile cases of infection in world history.

⇒ In 1995, the Chernobyl virus epidemic began, its other name is WinChih. Why Chernobyl and why is it so memorable to us? This virus was dangerous because every year on April 26 it destroyed the BIOS (primary operating system) data on every computer, and actually disabled it. It seemed that a virus had been created that could physically break the computer. But still, the computer did not physically break down, but the BIOS recovery procedure at that time was quite expensive, and sometimes it was much easier to buy a new one motherboard than to restore the old one.

An interesting fact is that the author of the virus has been found. He turned out to be a resident of South Korea, he even confessed to what he had done, but since South Korea at that time did not have the appropriate legislation and there were victims of the virus in Korea itself, the author of the virus did not suffer any punishment.

⇒ Already in the late 90s, American companies actively used e-mail as the main method of document flow. In 1999, there was an epidemic of the network worm "Melissa", which spread throughout e-mail, infecting computers, but it itself did not start and did not harm the computer. It was forwarded on its own to all addresses in the contact book. Almost users received a letter from his friend with the message: “Oh, look what I have interesting file" If the file was launched, the virus itself was activated and sent further similar messages. That is, in fact, the first viruses were launched by the users themselves. Despite the fact that the worm did not perform any malicious functions directly on computers, the mass nature of the mailings created a very serious load on corporate mail servers. And as a result, a number of companies were simply paralyzed because document flow was blocked.

⇒ New operating systems were released, and creating viruses for them was and is quite a serious challenge for attackers. There was still an opinion that there are no viruses for the Unix and Linux operating systems, but quite a lot of viruses have also been written for them. In 2000, an epidemic of the RedLove operating room virus began. Linux systems. The most important thing here was that the virus used a vulnerability in the operating system itself to infect and could spread freely between computers on the network, and since Linux users did not use antiviruses, it took about a year to fight the epidemic and hundreds of thousands of computers were infected.

At different times there have been many myths about computer viruses. Even when monitors had cathode ray tubes, there was a myth that there was a virus that could bring the rays together in the center of the screen, burn the screen and kill the person sitting in front of the monitor. There was also a myth that there are viruses that can destroy hard disks computer and so on. As a rule, all hoaxes arise around the ability of a computer to influence environment. There was even an opinion that there are viruses that can show such color scheme, capable of killing the user or at least driving him crazy. In fact, this is all a hoax. Viruses do not have any such capabilities.

Another hoax that is attributed to viruses is the ability to reproduce in fantastic conditions, almost by placing an infected flash drive near the computer. But we must understand that a virus is a program and it obeys all the rules that are characteristic of computer programs.

In the real world, it is quite difficult for a user to figure out where a virus might be and where it might not. For example, 10 years ago the prevailing opinion was that there could be no viruses in image files. And if they sent you an image, you open it, then you cannot become infected. But a few years later, a vulnerability was found in a number of formats graphic files, which allowed some viewers to launch the so-called virus shellcode when opening a picture, which activated a Trojan program installed on the computer. Now, by opening a certain document format, it is impossible to become infected with a virus, but this does not mean that this cannot become possible in a week. And if you are a layman who is following latest updates in the field of virus programs, it is better to assume that any link that you can open from your computer or mobile application could theoretically lead to infection.