Famous Computer Viruses
In the earlier era of the internet between 1999 and 2004, when virus protection was scarce and internet safety not at its current levels, viruses consistently rose to worldwide prominence. While viruses are still a very real threat, antivirus software has come a long way and it is now far less likely for a single worm to cause the destruction once possible.
ILOVEYOU
In May of 2000, a virus known as ILOVEYOU spread around the world in a
matter of hours. In under two weeks, 50 million Windows computers had
been infected, costing billions of dollars in damage. The virus was
spread through an email with a subject line of "I Love You" and an
attachment reading "Love-Letter-For-You" containing the worm. It spread
swiftly due to its exploitation of the Windows address book,
automatically sending itself to the first fifty people and sending
personal information back to its authors in the Philippines.
Code Red
Named for the beverage those who first discovered the virus were
drinking, Code Red exploited vulnerabilities in Microsoft's IIS web
servers, defacing websites with its signature, "Hacked By Chinese!",
spreading itself to other services, and running denial of service
attacks on websites including the Whitehouse.gov site. 359,000 computers
were reportedly infected in less than 14 hours, making it one of the
quickest outbreaks we've ever seen.
Mydoom
First sighted in 2004, it's believed this virus was written for e-mail
spammers to use infected computers to send spam. The author is unknown,
but it contains the text ""andy; I'm just doing my job, nothing
personal, sorry," which lead many to believe the creator was paid. It
quickly became the fastest spreading email worm of all time and is
estimated to have inflicted $38 billion in damages. It has been
estimated that in the first few days, 1 in 10 emails sent worldwide
contained the virus and that it slowed global internet access by ten
percent.
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