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Hex dump of the Blaster worm, showing a message left for Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates by the worm's programmer. This timeline of computer viruses and worms presents a chronological timeline of noteworthy computer viruses, computer worms, Trojan horses, similar malware, related research and events.
This is an accepted version of this page This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 27 February 2025. Computer program that modifies other programs to replicate itself and spread Hex dump of the Brain virus, generally regarded as the first computer virus for the IBM Personal Computer (IBM PC) and compatibles A computer virus is a type of malware that, when executed, replicates itself by ...
ILOVEYOU, sometimes referred to as the Love Bug or Loveletter, was a computer worm that infected over ten million Windows personal computers on and after 5 May 2000. It started spreading as an email message with the subject line "ILOVEYOU" and the attachment "LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs". [1]
Computer viruses generally require a host program. [11] The virus writes its own code into the host program. When the program runs, the written virus program is executed first, causing infection and damage. A worm does not need a host program, as it is an independent program or code chunk.
The computer term "Trojan horse" is derived from the legendary Trojan Horse of the ancient city of Troy. For this reason "Trojan" is often capitalized. For this reason "Trojan" is often capitalized. However, while style guides and dictionaries differ, many suggest a lower case "trojan" for normal use.
Early computer viruses were written for the Apple II and Mac, but they became more widespread with the dominance of the IBM PC and MS-DOS. The first IBM PC virus in the wild was a boot sector virus dubbed (c)Brain, created in 1986 by the Farooq Alvi brothers in Pakistan. [14]
The first IBM PC compatible "in the wild" computer virus, and one of the first real widespread infections, was "Brain" in 1986. From then, the number of viruses has grown exponentially. [14] [15] Most of the computer viruses written in the early and mid-1980s were limited to self-reproduction and had no specific damage routine built into the ...
Frederick B. Cohen (born 1956) is an American computer scientist and best known as the inventor of computer virus defense techniques. [2] He gave the definition of "computer virus". [ 3 ] Cohen is best known for his pioneering work on computer viruses, the invention of high integrity operating system mechanisms now in widespread use, and ...