Who created computer virus

As networking and the internet matured, malware authors were quick to adapt their malicious code and take advantage of the new communication medium. Between and , malware grew significantly, both in number and in how fast infections spread.

At the start of the new millennium, Internet and email worms were making headlines across the globe. Later, we witnessed a dramatic increase in malware toolkits, including the now infamous Sony rootkit, which was instrumental in malware authors including rootkits in most modern malware.

Crimeware kits aimed specifically at websites also rose in popularity, and the number of compromised websites escalated correspondingly. Organized crime and state sponsors upped the game dramatically with large, well-funded development teams. These malicious workgroups continue to evolve today, developing advanced malware with evasion tactics that outsmart many conventional anti-malware systems.

Infiltrating factories and military systems became a common reality, and the monetization of malware grew rapidly with dramatic growth in ransomware and other illegal schemes. Although malware gained much of its initial footing by infecting computers like PCs, today virtually anything with a microprocessor is at risk. Researchers have demonstrated how malware can infect hundreds of new targets, including wearables like watches and Fitbits , light bulbs , automobiles , water supply systems , and even airliners.

So why would anyone create a virus anyway!? Malware, short for malicious software, includes many types of software written with the intent of harming your computer, invading your privacy, stealing assets or passwords for identity theft, or simply to be annoying. Malware includes viruses, worms, Trojan horses, spyware and more.

How does malware infect your computer in the first place? We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website.

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The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". It does not store any personal data. Functional Functional. The threat landscape became a mixed environment shared by viruses, worms and Trojans—hence the name "malware" as an umbrella term for malicious software. One of the most serious epidemics of this new era was the LoveLetter, which appeared on May 4, As Securelist notes, it followed the pattern of earlier email viruses of the time, but unlike the macro viruses that had dominated the threat landscape since , it didn't take the form of an infected Word document, but arrived as a VBS file.

It was simple and straightforward, and since users hadn't learned to be suspicious of unsolicited emails, it worked. Since the message often came to new victims from someone familiar, they were more likely to open it, making ILOVEYOU a proof-of-concept for the effectiveness of social engineering.

The Code Red worm was a "file less" worm—it existed only in memory and made no attempt to infect files on the system. Taking advantage of a flaw in the Microsoft Internet Information Server, the fast-replicating worm wreaked havoc by manipulating the protocols that allow computers to communicate and spread globally in just hours. Eventually, as noted in Scientific American , compromised machines were used to launch a distributed denial of service attack on the Whitehouse.

One of the most recent of the major viruses came out in , Heartbleed burst onto the scene and put servers across the Internet at risk.