Computer viruses have existed for nearly as long as the existence of computers themselves. The very first experimental computer virus was created in 1971 and its only goal was to replicate itself until it effectively filled up the hard drive of the computer. It was created by BBN Technologies in the US and did not affect any other computers, save for the few test computer used to measure the effectiveness of the virus.
The first virus that affected personal computers came about in 1986, and it was simply dubbed "Brain". The way it crippled computers was that it infected the boot sector of the floppy disk, essentially preventing the computer from booting up entirely. It was written by two brothers in Pakistan, who even included their contact information inside infected computers so they could see how far and wide their virus had spread.
Another virus had spawned, and it was named "Morris". It was originally a program that was intended to measure the size of the internet, but due to a program error, it spread too fast and infected 15,000 computers in a mere 15 hours., which back then was the majority of computers connected to the internet.
The rise of email transmitted viruses made it so easy to send viruses to other users. A famous example is a virus called "Melissa", and while it didn't do anything that directly hardmed computers, it managed to crash emails servers because of it's unique function. It would infect computers using Outlook, and hurl itself out to the top 50 people in the infected's address book. As you can imagine, a virus that can multiply to 50 times its original size was absolutely catastrophic.
Viruses are becoming increasingly more and more common. But with advancing software, computer viruses are easily preventable if you exercise good internet safety. Unfortunately, inexperienced computer users can still infect their computers because they don't know how to use computers properly. The elderly and children are great targets because they usually click whatever they see. Upgrade from Windows 7, I know the popups are annoying, just get Windows 10. I promise it's okay.
Fun Facts:
- Computer virus "MyDoom" caused a massive $38 billion in damages, making it the costliest computer virus in history.
- More than 6,000 new computer viruses are created and released every month.
- In 1990, there were only 50 known computer viruses. Now that number is estimated to be around 480,000.
Blue Error Screen for Windows 10:
WHAT DID YOU DO TO YOUR POOR COMPUTER???
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