The Five Most Famous Computer Viruses

Historians trace the roots of the computer virus back to the 1940s when John von Neuman published a paper titled "Theory and Organization of Complicated Automata." The paper discussed the possibility of self-replicating computer programs, which is pretty much what a virus is. The term "virus" wasn't used to describe self-replicating programs until 1983, when Frederick Cohen used it in his doctoral thesis after he and his thesis advisor, Len Alderman, noticed a similarity between the way self-replicating programs and biological viruses propagate. But it wasn't until 1986 that viruses started replicating from one computer to the next on a mass scale.

Most historians agree that the first virus to replicate from PC to PC was Brain. (Viruses had been passing between other computer platforms such as VAXs and Apple IIs for years.) The story goes that Basit and Amjaad Farooq Alvi, owners of a store called Brain Computer Services, wrote the boot sector virus to stealthily leave their contact information on infected computers. Basit and Amjaad claimed they wrote the code to ascertain the extent of software piracy in Pakistan (they were, after all, software vendors). But Brain soon leaked through the Pakistani borders and quite harmlessly infected computers worldwide. Despite the intention of its author, the infamous Internet Worm wasn't as benign as Brain. Written by Cornell University Ph.D. student Robert Morris in 1988, the Internet Worm quickly writhed its way onto VAX and Sun systems throughout the country. Though Morris had intended for his creation to spread from computer to computer without causing any damage or leaving a trace, his code was flawed. The Internet Worm replicated so many times and sucked up so many CPU cycles that it rendered its computer hosts useless, effectively bringing the Internet to its knees. Though the worm left no scars on its hosts after it was removed, the United States General Accounting Office predicted that somewhere between $100,000 and $10,000,000 was lost in terms of cumulative productivity between all of the 6,000 systems infected nationwide.

When Morris realized how much havoc his worm was wreaking, he tried to send anonymous messages on how to disinfect the beast over the same network on which he unleashed the worm. Unfortunately, machines were so catatonic that the remedy never went anywhere. The Internet Worm attracted a great deal of media attention and Morris was eventually sentenced to three years of probation and 400 hours of community service, and fined $10,050. (By the way, Morris was the son of the chief scientist at the National Security Center -- part of the NSA.) n 1992, hysteria swept over the planet as newspapers, magazines, and television networks proclaimed that on March 6, the birth date of Renaissance artist Michelangelo, up to one quarter of American hard drives would be completely erased.

The media frenzy started through a coincidence. In January of 1992 one computer manufacturer claimed it had inadvertently distributed 500 PCs carrying the virus while another computer company issued a press release stating that from that point on it would bundle antivirus software with every PC it sold. The two events were completely unrelated, but apparently it was a slow news day and reporters tried to make a story out of it. By the time March 5 rolled around, the fever pitch had reached Y2K proportions. Even the respectable Wall Street Journal carried the headline "Deadly Virus Set to Wreak Havoc Tomorrow."

Why did the media go nuts? For one thing, John McAfee, the man behind McAfee Anti-Virus, told reporters that an estimated five million computers worldwide could lose their hard drives on account of the Michelangelo virus. (Take note that there were a lot of other ballooned predictions from other people.) As you can imagine, McAfee's prediction boosted his company's sales significantly.

When March 6 came, the virus struck only about 10,000 computers. Many members of the media claimed it would have affected far more if not for their reporting.

Another virus that fired up the media was Melissa, a Word macro virus. When people received the host Word document via email and opened it, the virus sent a copy of itself to the first 50 people in the victim's address book.

Named after a topless dancer in Florida, the Melissa virus crashed the email servers of corporations and governments in different spots around the world. The Computer Emergency Response Team, set up after Robert Morris mucked up the Internet with his worm in 1988, estimated that the virus hit 100,000 computers in its first weekend.

David L. Smith posted the infected file to an alt.sex usenet group using a stolen AOL account. Initially he entered a plea of innocence, but after being confronted with a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison, he eventually pled guilty and received a much-reduced sentence.

By almost any measure, the so-called Love Bug was the most damaging and costly virus ever. I don't know who comes up with these whack figures, but according to Reuters the bug cost the world $15 billion in lost productivity.

The Love Bug spread far faster than Melissa. Unlike Melissa, it would mail itself to everyone in your Outlook address book -- most of whom would probably be delighted to read about how you love them -- not just the first fifty. Moreover, it would gobble up certain media files stored on your hard drive. One German newspaper tragically lost 2,000 pictures from its archive.

The perpetrator turned out to be a 23-year-old Filipino computer science student who more or less plagiarized all of his code. Because of a lack of laws in the Philippines covering computer crimes, he pretty much got away with his crime.