Computer virus development

Setup Wizard. This is one in a series of Articles published by Mapcon Technologies, Inc. Please feel free to send us your comments via email. This was based his lectures he had held 18 years earlier on this theory. The Reaper was later developed to delete this virus.

The computer system would eventually crash. This became known as on of the first non-malicious Trojans. It was also spread by sharing tapes. A novel by John Brunner called the "Shockwave Rider" coined the term "worm" by using it to describe a particular program that circulates itself through a computer network.

It infected the Apple DOS 3. The "Elk Virus" was responsible for being the first computer virus to cause a massive outbreak ever in history.

It was immediately stopped. Cascade was the first self-encrypting file virus that resulted in IBM developing an antivirus product. A virus found in Jerusalem called the Jerusalem Virus infected and destroyed all executable files on computers after being activated only on every Friday the 13 th.

This caused a world wide epidemic a year later. A boot sector virus for specifically for the Amigas called the SCA virus quickly caused a virus-writer clash. It was the first replicating program that that was able to infect quite a few computer networks internationally. It was a type of boot sector virus. This system was also connected to the internet which made it the first worm to spread into the "wild.

It requested immediate payment in order for it to be removed. The first polymorphic virus called the Chameleon was developed. With its every changing appearance, it became wide spread and difficult to detect. The Michelangelo was blown out of proportion by the media to have caused a digital apocalypse, when in actuality it caused little damage.

It is said that any email with the subject of Good Times is in fact a malicious virus capable of erasing the whole hard drive. Although this hoax was later disproved it will still reappear from time to time. It spreads through and attacks Microsoft Word documents. A virus called the Chernobyl spreads drastically through executive files. It affected files and certain chips in computers.

Two teens from California were able to infiltrate and control over computer systems from the military, private sectors, and the government. Another worm that attacked in a similar way as the Happy99 called the Melissa worm W97M. Melissa targeted systems based with Microsoft Word and Outlook Express.

It infected nearly one million PC s. Bubble Boy was another worm that worked similarly to Melissa and Happy99 except that it was able to function without the user opening an email. The first macro virus capable of infecting multiple programs was known as the Tristate. A computer worm from Javascript called the Kak worm, spreads by placing an infection in Outlook Express. It works similar to that of the Melissa or Bubble Boy virus in the way that it is spread. It sends user names and passwords back to the person responsible for spreading the virus.

Although it was not a malicious virus it did cause it gave analysts a reason to believe it was written using a tool kit, which could be used by the most inexperienced programmer. More worms such as CodeRed, Sircam, and BadTrans are causing more problems and becoming more prevalent. CodeRed caused the most damage by infecting nearly , hosts of web pages in least than 24 hours.

BadTrans was designed for stealing credit card information along with passwords. A computer worm called Mylife spread by sending malicious emails to all of the email addresses in Microsoft Outlook. It was also capable of doubling its numbers every 8 seconds during the first initial minute of infection.

A worm called the Welchia or Nachi tried to remove such other worms as Blaster and attempt to repair windows. The first worm to be considered spam was called Sobig. It spread quickly through network shares and email of Microsoft systems.

Vulnerabilities in Microsoft caused computer worms like Agobot and Bolgimo to spread easily. It holds the record for the quickest spreading mass mailer worm.

The Netsky worm spreads through emails by replicating itself to folders found on the local hard drive. The Whitty worm found holes in many Internet Security Systems related products. The Whitty worm was the first of its kind to spread rapidly through the internet. The Caribe was the first computer worm designed to infect mobile phones that had Symbian OS. No one ever got hired because they wrote a computer virus.

You will learn a lot more about how computer programs and viruses work by learning to program than you ever will by writing and tinkering with computer viruses. A computer virus is a program solely designed to do malicious tasks, such as deleting files or inserting code into other files to corrupt them.

It accomplishes these tasks by copying itself to other areas in memory or by spreading to other computers and areas the logged in user can access. By learning to program, you'll understand how viruses work in addition to gaining other skills. See the link below if you are not exactly sure what language to start learning first.

You can create test virus files to test your computer's antivirus scanner without having to create one. See the link below for additional information and code on how to create a test virus. No, the only fame you may get is a brief news article or a picture of you being handcuffed and sent to prison.

Once incarcerated, it's on your record and would make it impossible to get hired at any respectable computer company or government agency. If you were to write a computer virus that was successful, you would want to remain anonymous in fear of being prosecuted by the law. 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.

Heartbleed, unlike viruses or worms, stems from a vulnerability in OpenSSL, a general purpose, open source cryptographic library used by companies worldwide. OpenSSL periodically sends out "heartbeats" to ensure that secure endpoints are still connected. Users can send OpenSSL a specific amount of data and then ask for the same amount back—for example, one byte. If users claim they're sending the maximum allowed, 64 kilobytes, but only send a single byte, the server will respond with the last 64 kilobytes of data stored in RAM, notes security technologist, Bruce Schneier , which could include anything from user names to passwords to secure encryption keys.

For more than 60 years, computer viruses have been part of collective human consciousness, however what was once simply cyber vandalism has turned quickly to cybercrime. Worms, Trojans and viruses are evolving. Hackers are motivated and clever, always willing push the boundaries of connection and code to devise new infection methods. The future of cybercrime seems to involve more PoS point of sale hacks, and, perhaps, the recent Moker remote access Trojan is a good example of what's to come.

This newly-discovered malware is hard to detect, difficult to remove and bypasses all known defenses.