Computer viruses have existed since the early 1980s. Some key events in virus history include the first Apple viruses in 1981, Fred Cohen's seminal research in the 1980s, the first memory resident virus called Lehigh in 1987, and the release of the first antivirus software in 1988. Major viruses that caused widespread damage include Melissa in 1999, I Love You in 2000, Code Red in 2001, and Slammer in 2003. To prevent virus infections, it is important to keep systems and software updated, use antivirus software, be wary of unknown attachments, and verify any security alerts before taking action.

1. The History and Details of
Computer Viruses
With Chuck Easttom
http://www.chuckeasttom.com
chuck@chuckeasttom.com

2. Terms
•What is a virus
•What is a worm
•What is a Trojan horse

3. The History of Computer Viruses
•1981 Apple Viruses 1, 2, & 3
•1980’s Fred Cohen
•1987 Lehigh Virus
•1988 The first anti virus software
•1990 The first polymorphic viruses
•1991 Symantec releases Norton Anti Virus
•1992 The Michelangelo Virus
•1994 Kaos4 virus spreads via adult websites.
•1996 The Concept virus

4. The History of Computer Viruses II
•1999 The Melissa Virus
•2000 The I Love You Virus
•2001 The Code Red Worm
•2003 The Slammer Worm.
•2004 MyDoom

5. The History of Computer Viruses Details
1981 Apple Viruses 1, 2, and 3 are some of the
first viruses "in the wild" or public domain.
Found on the Apple II operating system, the
viruses spread through Texas A&M via pirated
computer games.

6. The History of Computer Viruses Details
1980’s In the early 1980s, Fred Cohen did
extensive theoretical research, as well as setting
up and performing numerous practical
experiments, regarding viral type programs. His
dissertation was presented in 1986 as part of the
requirements for a doctorate in electrical
engineering from the University of Southern
California. This work is foundational, and any
serious student of viral programs disregards it at
his own risk Dr. Cohen's definition of a
computer virus as "a program that can 'infect'
other programs by modifying them to include a
version of itself

7. The History of Computer Viruses Details
1987 In November, the Lehigh virus was
discovered at Lehigh University in the U.S. It
was the first "memory resident file infector". A
file-infecting virus attacks executable files. It
gets control when the file is opened. The Lehigh
virus attacked a file called COMMAND.COM.
When the file was run (usually by booting from
an infected disk), the virus stayed in the resident
memory.

8. The History of Computer Viruses Details
1988 In March, the first anti-virus software was
written. It was designed to detect and remove
the Brain virus and immunized disks against
Brain infection.

9. The History of Computer Viruses Details
1990 Viruses combining various characteristics
spring up. They included Polymorphism
(involves encrypted viruses where the
decryption routine code is variable), Armoring
(used to prevent anti-virus researchers from
dissembling a virus) and Multipartite (can
infect both programs and boot sectors).

10. The History of Computer Viruses Details
1991 Symantec releases Norton Anti-Virus
software.
1992 Media mayhem greeted the virus
Michaelangelo in March. Predictions of
massive disruptions were made and anti-virus
software sales soared. As it turned out, the cases
of the virus were far and few between.

11. The History of Computer Viruses Details
1994 A virus called Kaos4 was posted on a
pornography news group file. It was encoded as
text and downloaded by a number of users.
1996 Concept, a macro-virus, becomes the most
common virus in the world.
1998 - The "RedTeam" virus infects Windows
executables dispatches the infected files through
Eudora e-mail.

12. The History of Computer Viruses Details
1998: The emergence of the sensational
"BackOrifice" ("Backdoor.BO") - utility of that
allowed hackers management of remote
computers and networks.
1999 The Melissa virus, a macro, appears. It
uses Microsoft Word to infect computers and is
passed on to others through Microsoft Outlook
and Outlook Express e-mail programs.

13. The History of Computer Viruses Details
2000 The "I Love You Virus" wreaks havoc around the
world. It is transmitted by e-mail and when opened, is
automatically sent to everyone in the user's address book
July 2001: The Code Red worm infects tens of thousands of
systems running Microsoft Windows NT and Windows 2000
server software, causing an estimated $2 billion in damages.
The worm is programmed to use the power of all infected
machines against the White House Web site at a
predetermined date. In an ad hoc partnership with virus
hunters and technology companies, the White House
deciphers the virus's code and blocks traffic as the worm
begins its attack.
.

14. The History of Computer Viruses Details
2002: Melissa virus author David L. Smith, 33,
is sentenced to 20 months in federal prison
Jan. 2003: The "Slammer" worm infects
hundreds of thousands of computers in less than
three hours. The fastest-spreading worm ever
wreaks havoc on businesses worldwide,
knocking cash machines offline and delaying
airline flights.

15. The History of Computer Viruses Details
2004: The "MyDoom" worm becomes the
fastest-spreading e-mail worm as it causes
headaches -- but very little damage -- almost a
year to the day after Slammer ran rampant in
late January 2003. MyDoom uses "social
engineering," or low-tech psychological tricks,
to persuade people to open the e-mail
attachment that contains the virus. It claims to
be a notification that an e-mail message sent
earlier has failed, and prompts the user to open
the attachment to see what the message text
originally said. Many people fall for it.

16. The History of Computer Viruses Details
2007: A new virus called "Storm Worm." is
released. This fast-spreading email spammer
disguises itself as a news email and asks you to
download film. The "Storm Worm" gathers
infected computers into a botnet, which it uses
to infect other machines. It was first identified
on Jan. 17 and within 13 days had infected 1.7
million computers

17. The History of Computer Viruses Details
2009 9 million computers running on Windows
operating system were hit with "Conficker"
worm. The malware spread via the Internet and
the main tools that helped the worm spread
were unpatched corporate networks and USB
memory sticks. First discovered last October, it
loads itself on to a computer by exploiting a
weakness in Windows servers. Once it has
infected a machine, the software also tries to
connect to up to 250 different domains with
random names every day.

18. The mechanics of Viruses
•Delivery
a. Via email
b. Copying over a network
c. Direct communication with exposed ports.
•Payload
•Types of Viruses
•Macro virus
•Script Virus
•Executable Virus

19. How Anti Virus Software Works
• Scanning for known files
•Scanning for worm infection vectors
•Heuristic scanning

20. Current Active Viruses
As of 13 November 2005
•Sober.S first noticed October 13, 2005
•Bagle variant started September 19, 2005
•Zotob-D August 16th, 2005

21. Rules for preventing viruses
Keep operating system and all software updated/patched
Use a virus scanner. McAffee and Norton are the two most widely
accepted and used virus scanners. It costs about $30 a year to keep
your virus scanner updated. Do it.
If you are not sure about an attachment, don’t open it.
You might even exchange a code word with friends and colleagues.
Tell them that if they wish to send you an attachment, to put the
code word in the title of the message. Without seeing the code
word, you will not open any attachment.
Don’t believe “security alerts” that you are sent. Microsoft does
not send out things in this manner. Go check the Microsoft website
regularly, as well as one of the anti-virus websites previously
mentioned.

22. Anti Virus Information Web Sites
http://www.f-secure.com/virus-info/virus-news/
http://www.cert.org/nav/index_red.html
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/