Twenty years of computer viruses

It is 20 years since the release of the world's first PC virus, according to antivirus firm F-Secure.

'Brain' was a boot sector virus created by two brothers, Basit and Amjad Farooq Alvi, to protect a game they had written.

The exact day of creation is open to question, however, and some experts have suggested that the 'Ashar' virus pre-dated 'Brain'.

These viruses were spread via floppy disc and could be avoided fairly simply by making the disc read-only. Since then virus propagation has become significantly easier, and transmission rates have skyrocketed since the birth of the internet.

"It will be interesting to see what kind of viruses we will be talking about in another 20 years - computer viruses infecting household appliances perhaps?" said Mikko Hyppönen, chief research officer at F-Secure.

"The most significant change has been the evolution of virus writing hobbyists into criminally operated gangs bent on financial gain. This trend shows no signs of stopping."

• Virus emails halve in 2005
• 2005 Review of the Year: Security
• Virus honey-pots to immunise the web

See also:

New Sober variant hits inboxes

But this time police seems to have caught the author's trail  16 Nov 2005

Bagle variant floods inboxes worldwide

Mass spamming campaigns designed to spread Trojan malware  21 Sep 2005

Sasser author walks free

Suspended sentence for German teen behind 'biggest viruses in the history of the internet'  08 Jul 2005

Porn worm launches DoS attack on Microsoft

Oldest trick in the book  31 Mar 2005

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