history of viruses

The ebola virusViruses have been around for longer than you might think. Check out the timeline for a brief history of computer viruses.
Click on the highlighted virus names to learn more about them.
1986
The first PC virus was created. Known as the Brain virus, it was written in Pakistan. The Brain virus was a boot-sector virus, which means it only infected the boot records of 360K floppy disks, but not hard drives. It would occupy unused space on the disk so that it could not be used. It was also the first "stealth" virus, meaning it tried to hide itself from detection. If a computer user tried to view the infected space on the disk, Brain would display the original, uninfected boot sector.
1987
In November, the Lehigh virus was discovered at Lehigh University in the U.S. It was the first "memory resident file infector". A file-infecting virus attacks executable files. It gets control when the file is opened. The Lehigh virus attacked a file called COMMAND.COM. When the file was run (usually by booting from an infected disk), the virus stayed in the resident memory.
In December, the Jerusalem virus appeared at Hebrew University in Israel. It was also a memory resident file infector. It was the first virus that contained a bug that caused it to re-infect already infected programs.
1988
In March, the first anti-virus virus was written. It was designed to detect and remove the Brain virus and immunized disks against Brain infection.
The Cascade virus is found in Germany. It was the first encrypted virus, meaning it was coded so that it could not be changed or removed.
Viruses started getting media attention, with articles in magazines like Business Week, Newsweek, Fortune, PC Magazine and Time
1989
On September 17, the Washington Post reports that a computer virus "that springs to life destructively on Friday the 13th is on the loose". The virus was called DataCrime and ended up being blown way out of proportion.
A virus called Dark Avenger introduced a new feature. It was designed to damage a system slowly, so it would go unnoticed at first and damaged files would be backed up.
In October, the Frodo virus turned up in Israel. If was the first full-stealth file infector, designed to damage the hard drive if run on or after September 22 of any year.
1990
Many anti-virus products were introduced, including ones from IBM, McAfee, Digital Dispatch and Iris.
Viruses combining various characteristics spring up. They included Polymorphism (involves encrypted viruses where the decryption routine code is variable), Armoring (used to prevent anti-virus researchers from dissembling a virus) and Multipartite (can infect both programs and boot sectors).
1991
Symantec releases Norton Anti-Virus software.
In April, the Tequlia virus is discovered. It is Stealth, Polymorphic and Multipartite!
1992
Media mayhem greeted the virus Michaelangelo in March. Predictions of massive disruptions were made and anti-virus software sales soared. As it turned out, the cases of the virus were far and few between.
1993
The SatanBug virus appears around Washington DC The anti-virus industry helped the FBI find the person who wrote it - it was a kid.
Cruncher was considered a "good" virus because it compressed infected programs and gave users more disk space.
1994
A virus called Kaos4 was posted on a pornography news group file. It was encoded as text and downloaded by a number of users.
A virus called Pathogen appeared in England. The writer was tracked down by Scotland Yard's Computer Crime Unit and convicted.
1995
Anti-virus companies worried nobody would need them anymore because of Windows 95. The most common viruses were still boot viruses that worked on DOS, but wouldn't replicate on Windows 95. But, later in 1995, macro viruses appeared. These viruses worked in the MS-Word environment, not DOS. The anti-virus industry was caught off-guard, but was happy at the same time.
1996
Concept, a macro-virus, becomes the most common virus in the world.
Boza , a weak virus, is the first virus designed for Windows 95
Laroux is the first virus to successfully infect Microsoft Excel spreadsheets.
1999
The Melissa virus, a macro, appears. It uses Microsoft Word to infect computers and is passed on to others through Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express e-mail programs.
2000
The "I Love You Virus" wreaks havoc around the world. It is transmitted by e-mail and when opened, is automatically sent to everyone in the user's address book.
To learn more about computer viruses and to keep up with the latest virus news, check out F-Secure Framework's site, IBM's anti-virus webpage and Symantec's website.