The history of viruses?

The concept of computer viruses actually originated fairly early, years before the first commercial computers, when computer pioneer John Von Neumann outlined the blueprint for a virus program in his paper, "Theory and Organization of Complex Automata". John Von Neumann, a computer pioneer, outlined the blueprint for a virus program in his paper, "Theory of Complex Automata and the Conduct of Group Knowledge". At the time, however, the vast majority of computer experts could not have imagined such a program that could reproduce itself.

In 1975, the American science writer John Brunel (1977) wrote a book about a virus that could reproduce itself. John Brunner wrote a book called Shock Wave Rider, which became one of the year's best sellers when it first portrayed computers as a tool in the struggle between good and evil in the information society.

In the summer of 1977, Thomas? Jet? J. Ryan's science fiction novel The Adolescence of P-1 became a bestseller in the U.S., in which the author describes a virus that can infect computers with each other, and which ends up taking control of 7,000 computers, causing a catastrophe. What was in the world of virtual science fiction finally and gradually began to become a nightmare for computer users a few years later.

At about the same time, the famous AT&T Bell Labs in the United States, three young people after work, very bored to play a game: each other to write a program that can eat other people's programs to fight each other. This game, called "core war" (core war), further embodied the concept of "infectious" computer viruses.

On November 3, 1983, a University of Southern California student, Fred Cohen, was the first person to create a computer virus. On November 3, 1983, a University of Southern California student, Fred Cohen, wrote a program that caused the system to crash under UNIX, but the program did not attract the attention of some professors. Cohen published the program in a paper to prove his theory, which caused quite a shock at the time. Cohen's programs crystallized the notion that computer viruses could be destructive.

But it was in a monthly issue of Scientific American two years later that such infectious and destructive programs were actually called "viruses. A columnist named A.K. Dewdney, discussing the "core wars" and the Apple II computer (which, don't doubt it, was all the rage at the time, when the familiar PC was nowhere to be seen), began to refer to the program as a virus. Since then, we've finally had a name for these infectious or destructive programs.

The first real computer virus

In 1987, the first computer virus, C-BRAIN, was finally created (which doesn't seem to be a cause for celebration). Generally, the industry recognizes this as the true originator of computer viruses with full characteristics. The virus program was written by a pair of Pakistani brothers, Basit and Amjad, who ran a local PC store and whose aim was to prevent their software from being copied arbitrarily because of the prevalence of software piracy in the area. Whenever someone pirates their software, C-BRAIN kicks in and eats up the remaining space on the pirate's hard drive.

This virus wasn't very lethal at the time, but later some enterprising people used C-BRAIN as a blueprint to create some distorted viruses. Other new virus creations also came out, not only by individuals, but also by groups (e.g. NuKE,Phalcon/Skism,VDV). Various types of anti-virus, anti-virus and anti-virus software and specialized companies have also appeared. All the time, all kinds of virus creation and anti-virus programs are constantly being introduced, just like a hundred schools of thought.

Famous DOS-era viruses

The so-called "DOS-era viruses," meaning that this is from the DOS era on the old, you readers do not think that you are now in the era of Windows 95/98, will not be infected with DOS-era viruses. In fact, Windows 95/98 is at best a DOS-based operating system, so even if you're under Windows 95/98, you'll still be on fire if you're not careful!

Jerusalem

This vintage virus has a more popular nickname, Black Friday. Why the funny nickname? The reason is simple: every Friday the 13th, the virus will strike. It will terminate all the programs executed by the user, and the symptoms are quite vicious.

Michelangelo

Michelangelo's name is a familiar one to some early computer users. The reason for its fame is that it has the name of Michelangelo, the master of art of his generation, but more importantly, it is amazingly lethal: every year on March 6, Michelangelo's birthday (which is why it is called "Michelangelo"), this virus will Format hard disk to celebrate the birthday of the master. All your hard-earned data will be destroyed and you will never be able to recover.

Monkey

Monkey is said to be the first "boot-type" virus, as long as you use a Monkey-infected system floppy diskette, the virus will invade your computer, and then wait for the opportunity to remove the partition table of the hard disk, so that when you boot up the computer will appear "Invalid drive specification" message. The message "Invalid drive specification" appears as soon as you turn on your computer. Monkey is a much tougher nut to crack than "file-based" viruses, which can only be poisoned by executing an infected file.

Music Bug

This virus, which sings loudly when it strikes and can even cause data loss and failure to boot, is a native of Taiwan. So when you hear a burst of music coming from your computer, don't think your computer is smarter than others, it's probably poisoned.

In fact, there are many such singing viruses, and there is another famous one (what is its name?) that sings "Two Tigers" when it strikes!

The viruses of the DOS era were quite varied, and there was a constant stream of people rewriting existing viruses. At a later stage, some people even wrote the so-called "dual-body engine", which could create a more diversified look for a virus, making it difficult to defend against! The symptoms of a virus attack are even more varied, some will sing, some will delete files, some will Format the hard disk, and some will show a variety of graphics and sound effects on the screen. But fortunately, these DOS-era vintage viruses are not as lethal as they once were, because most antivirus programs can easily remove them.

The Windows Era

With Windows 3.1, the PC operating environment entered the Windows Era. This was followed by the huge popularity of Windows 95/98, which now makes almost all PCs operate under Windows. The most well known of these are the "macro viruses" and the "32-bit viruses".

Macro viruses

With the development of various Windows packages, many software programs have begun to offer the so-called "macro" function, which allows users to "create macros" to record some tedious processes as a simple command for their own convenience. However, this convenient function, after the design of those who have the intention, finally makes the "file-based" virus enter a new milestone: the traditional file-based virus will only infect the execution file with the suffix of exe and com, while the macro virus will infect the data files stored in Word, Excel, AmiPro, Access and other software. What is more exaggerated is that this macro virus is cross-operating platform. As an example, Word's macro virus can infect Word files as well as generic templates on DOS, Windows 3.1/95/98/NT, OS/2, Macintosh, and so on.

In these macro-viruses, the most famous in addition to Melissa to be mentioned later is the scandalous Taiwan NO.1B. This virus attack situation is: to the thirteenth day of the month, as long as you casually open a Word document, a dialog window will appear on the screen, asking you a complex arithmetic questions. If you get it wrong (and only Superman can do that kind of math quickly), it opens twenty windows in a row, then another question appears, and so on, until it runs out of system resources and dies.

While macro viruses are highly contagious, they are fortunately not very destructive and can be detected easily, even manually without antivirus software.

32-bit viruses

The so-called "32-bit viruses" are a new type of file-based viruses produced after Windows 95, which also infects exe executable files, but these viruses are specifically designed to target Windows 32-bit programs, the most famous of which is the CIH virus, which became very popular last year.

The CIH virus is so powerful that it can disassemble itself into an infected file, so the size of the infected file doesn't change, and antivirus software can't easily detect it. The last version of the CIH virus, in addition to the attack on the 26th of each month, your hard disk Format off, and sometimes will destroy the motherboard BIOS information, so you can not boot! Although most of the antivirus software have the latest virus code to solve this difficult virus, but because of its power is really strong, we should be careful. (CIH is likely to strike again on April 26th of this year, you'll be fine, right?)

The Internet revolution

Some people say that the emergence of the Internet has triggered a new wave of information revolution. Because on the Internet, the distance between people has been shortened to a very small distance, and the establishment of various websites and the use of search engines have made it easy for everyone to get the information they want from the Internet.

The Internet has created a massive flow of information, but it has also provided an excellent channel for computer hackers to spread viruses and steal accounts and passwords. As a result, the average user, while enjoying the convenience of the Internet, has been plunged into another fear.

New shortcuts for viruses

With the convenience of the Internet, the ways in which viruses are transmitted have become more diverse. Whereas a virus might traditionally be spread on a disk or other storage media, you can now infect a friend by sending them a file in an e-mail or ICQ message, or you can even download a file from the Web and receive a file that contains a virus.

But although the network makes it easier to spread the virus, but in fact, this virus is still a traditional type, as long as you do not just download files from a number of unknown sites (because of the famous site in order not to smash their own signboards, to provide downloads of most of the files through the antivirus process), install antivirus software, update the virus code at any time, download the file do not rush to perform the first check for the first step (because of the virus by the first step). Steps (because by the traditional virus-infected programs, as long as not to perform will not be infected with the onset of), most can still avoid the situation of poisoning.

The rise of the second-generation viruses

The various viruses mentioned earlier are basically traditional viruses, or so-called "first-generation viruses". The main reason for this designation is to differentiate between the newest viruses that have appeared since the Internet boom. The new viruses, which are very different from the traditional ones, are called "second-generation viruses".

The biggest difference between the second-generation viruses and the first-generation viruses is that the second-generation viruses are browser-based, which is a bit of a mind-boggling development!

In order to make it easier for web designers to create more exciting animations on web pages, and to make web pages more spatial, several large companies have teamed up to develop Active X and Java technologies. And through these technologies, and even be able to distinguish the version of the software you use, suggesting that you should download which software to update the version, for most of the general user, is quite a convenient tool. However, if you want the animation of these web pages to be executed properly, the browser will automatically download these Active X and Java applets programs to the hard disk. In this process, developers of malicious programs use the same channel to infiltrate PCs via the Internet. This is the recent rise of the "second generation of viruses", also known as the "network virus".

The second-generation viruses that are now common are not very destructive, such as the "window bombs" that keep opening windows in browsers and the "alarm bears" with electronic timers that emit a "dong-dong" sound, as long as the browser is closed, the computer will not be affected in any way. However, as technology evolves, there is no guarantee that newer, more destructive viruses will not emerge.

We don't need to be too pessimistic about this trend, and we don't need to choke on it by refusing to use computers to surf the Internet. Throughout the history of computer development, the confrontation between viruses and antivirus software has been ongoing, so as long as we are careful, we can still enjoy swimming in the world of the Internet