 |
| A Brief History of Computer Viruses and Future Trends |
When it comes to cybersecurity, few terms are more famous than "computer virus." Despite the ubiquitous and widespread threat of computer viruses, many users do not understand the nature of viruses. The following is a brief history of computer viruses and the future development of this widespread cyber threat.
Self-replicating automata theory
A Brief History of Computer Viruses
What is a computer virus? The mathematician John von Neumann pioneered the idea in a series of lectures in the late 1840s, and then published a paper in 1966: The Theory of Self-Replicating Automata . The paper is an efficient thought experiment, inferring that a "mechanical" organism (such as a string of computer code) should be able to damage machines, replicate itself, and infect new hosts, like biological viruses.
Creeper program
A Brief History of Computer Viruses
According to Discovery, the Creeper program, considered by a larger number of people to be the principal infection, was made in 1971 by Bob Thomas of BBN. In fact, Creeper was designed as a security test to see if a self-replicator would work. Suffice to say it did. Creeper attempts to remove itself from the previous host after infecting each new hard drive. Creeper is not malicious, but just displays a simple message: "I am CREEPER. Catch me if you have the ability!"
Rabbit virus
A Brief History of Computer Viruses and Future Trends
According to InfoCarnivore data, the rabbit (or Wabbit) virus developed in 1974 is indeed malicious and capable of replicating itself. It makes multiple copies on one computer, severely impairs system performance, and eventually crashes the device. The virus got its name because of how fast it replicates.
The first Trojan
A Brief History of Computer Viruses
The first Trojan (however, there is some debate as to whether it counts as a Trojan or just another virus) is called ANIMAL. According to Fourmilab , the virus was developed in 1975 by computer programmer John Walker. Back then, "animal programs" were extremely popular. The program tries to guess which animal the user is thinking about by answering a 20-question game. The version Walker created was popular, but giving it to a friend required making and giving away tapes. To make it easy to give away, Walker created PERVADE. This program is installed with ANIMAL. While playing the game, PREVADE checks all computer directories available to the user and makes a copy in any directory where ANIMAL does not exist. Although ANIMAL and PREVADE are not malicious, they fit the definition of a Trojan: ANIMAL hides another program that performs operations without the user's permission.
Brain boot sector virus
What is Computer Virus
Brain was the first PC virus, infecting 5.2-inch floppy circles beginning around 1986. According to Securelist, it is the work of brothers Basit and Amjad Farooq Alvi. The two run a computer shop in Pakistan. Feeling helpless when customers were illegally copying their software, the brothers developed Brain, which replaced the boot sector of a floppy disk with a virus. The virus was also the first stealth virus that contained a hidden copyright message but didn't actually destroy any data.
LoveLetter virus
LoveLetter virus
The advent of reliable, high-speed broadband networks in the early 2000s changed the way malware spreads. Malware is no longer tethered to floppy disks or corporate networks, but can spread rapidly via email, via popular websites, and even directly over the Internet. Modern malware is beginning to take shape. The threat landscape has become a mixture of viruses, worms, and Trojans, giving rise to the collective term "malware." On May 4, 2000, a LoveLetter virus emerged, triggering one of the worst virus outbreaks in this new era.
According to Securelist , the virus followed the style of early email viruses at that time, and did not occupy a major threat position since 1995 like macro viruses.It didn't show up through tainting Word reports, yet an infection in the VBS document design. Its attack method is simple and straightforward, and because the users at the time did not know to be vigilant about unknown emails, its attacks frequently worked. Each email has the subject "I Love You" and contains an attachment "LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU-TXT.vbs". Onel de Guzman, the creator of ILOVEYOU, designed a worm that would overwrite an existing file and replace it with a copy of itself, before spreading the worm to all victims' email contacts. Because new victims often receive this email from an acquaintance, they are more likely to open it, making ILOVEYOU a successful proof-of-concept for the effectiveness of a social engineering attack.
Code Red virus
Code Red virus
The Code Red worm is a "fileless" worm that lives only in memory and does not attempt to infect files on the system. The fast-replicating worm exploits a flaw in Microsoft Internet Information Server to cause massive damage by manipulating a protocol that allows computers to communicate and spread across the globe within hours. Ultimately, the compromised device was used to launch a distributed denial of service attack against the Whitehouse.gov website , according to Scientific American .
Heartbleed
Heartbleed Virus
Heartbleed, one of the most dominant viruses in recent years, exploded in 2014 and put internet servers at risk. Unlike a virus or worm, Heartbleed stemmed from an OpenSSL vulnerability. OpenSSL is an open source cryptographic library commonly used by companies worldwide.OpenSSL occasionally radiates "pulses" to guarantee that protected endpoints are as yet associated. A user can send a certain amount of data to OpenSSL, and then ask for the same amount of data back, eg, one byte. Security technologist Bruce Schneier points out that if a user asks to send the maximum allowed 64 kilobytes, but only sends one byte, the server responds with the last 64 kilobytes of data stored in RAM, which may include data from the user. Any data from names to passwords, or even security keys.
The future of computer viruses
The future of computer viruses
For more than 60 years, computer viruses have been part of the collective consciousness of humanity, but what was once a mere act of cyber sabotage has rapidly turned into cybercrime. Worms, Trojans and viruses are constantly evolving. Hackers are motivated and smarter than ever, always looking to open up new frontiers of connections and code and invent new ways to infect. The future of cybercrime looks like more PoS (point-of-sale) hacking will take place, and perhaps the recent emergence of the Moker remote access Trojan is an example of what's to come. This newly discovered malware is difficult to detect and remove, and is able to bypass all known defenses. Unpredictable - Change is the lifeblood of attack and defense.
0 Comments