Evolution of Computer Virus

1.
1949
Theories for self-replicating programs are first developed.

2.
1981
Apple Viruses 1, 2, and 3 are some of the first viruses "in the wild", or in the public domain. Found on the Apple II operating system, the viruses spread across Texas through pirated games.

3.
1983
Fred Cohen defines a computer virus as "a program that can affect other computer programs by modifying them in such a way to include a (possibly evolved) copy of itself."

4.
1986
Two daredevil Pakistani Progammers, Basit and Amjad, replace the Executable code in the boot sector of a floopy disk with their own code designed to infect each 360 KB floppy accessed on any drive.

5.
1987
The Lehigh virus, one of the first file viruses, infects command.com files.

6.
1988
One of the most common ciruses, Jeruselem, is unleashed. The virus, affects both .exe and .com files. MacMag and the Scores virus cause the first major Macintsh outbreaks.

7.
1990
Symantec launches North Antivirus , one of the first anti-virus programs developed by a major company.

8.
1991
Tequila is the first widespread polymorphic virus found in the wild. Polymorphic viruses were specialy designed to make detection difficult for virus scanners.

9.
1992
As many as 1300 viruses are in existence.

10.
1990
The Dark Avenger Mutation Engine (DAME) is created. It's a tooklit that turns ordinary viruses into polymorphic viruses. The Virus Creation Laboratory(VCL) is also made available.

11.
1994
The God Times e-mail hoax tears through the Internet community. The hoax warns of a malicious virus that will erase an entire hard drive.

12.
1995
Word Concept becomes one of the most prevalent viruses in the mid 1990s . it is spread through Microsoft word documents.

13.
1996
The Baza, Laroux and Staog viruses are the first to infect Windows 95 files, Excel, and Linux respectively.

14.
1998
StrageBrew was the first virus to infect Java files. The Chernobyl virus spreads quickly via.exe files.

15.
1999
The Melissa virus executes a macro in a document attached to an e-mail, which, in turn, forwards the document to 50 people in the user's Outlook address book. Bubble Boy is the worm that does not depend on the recipient opening an attachment for infection to set in . As soon as the user opens the e-mail, Bubble Boy strikes.

16.
2000
The Love Bug, also known as the ILOVEYOU virus, sends itself out via Outlook. It also sends usernames and pass words to the virus' author.

17.
2000
W97M. Resume.A, a new variation of the Melissa virus, is determined to be in the wild. The 'resume' virus uses a Word macro to infect Outlook and spread itself.

18.
2000
China tightens regulations against viruses, mandating a fine and imprisonment for people who spread them.

19.
2000
The 'stages' virus, disguished as a joke e-mail about the stages of life, spreads across the Internet.

20.
2000
'stages' is hidden in an attachment with a false".txt" extension, luring recipients in opening it.

21.
2001
Shortly after the September 11th attacks, the Nimda virus infects computers all over the world. The virus is one of the most sophiticated to date.

22.
2001
The 'Anna Kournikova' virus worries analysts who beleived it was written with toolkit that would allow programmers to create virus.

23.
2002
Author of the Mellissa virus, David L. smith, is sentenced to 20 months in federal prison in New jersey.

24.
2003
In january, the relatively benign 'Slammer' worm, also known as Sapphire, becomes the fastest spreading worm till date, infecting 75000 computers in just 10 minutes.

25.
2003
The Sobig worm becomes the one of the first to join the spam community.

26.
2004
The MyDoom or Novarg worm spreads throug e-mails faster than any previous virus or worm. The target is 'denial of service attack' on the SCO group.