Computer viruses. Those dreaded infections can wipe out all of our files and also force us to take our computers and electronic devices to the shop.
Computer History 101:The 6 Most Deadly Computer Viruses in the History
Viruses are almost as old as the computer itself. Do you know which are the most deadly viruses in history? Today, we are going to reveal the 6 most dangerous viruses.
History of viruses
If you see the history of viruses, in the early 70’s, the first virus was created and detected.
It was 1972 and the first virus in history was a program that attacked and infected an IBM 360 Series computer. It was called Creeper, was created by Bob Thomas, in 1971. Although at that time there was no concept of the virus, it is Commonly known as the first virus in history.
Creeper was propagated through Arpanet, copied to the operating system and displayed the following message: ‘ I’m a creeper … catch me if you can!’ (‘I am a creeper … catch me if you can!’).
This peculiar virus was jumping from one computer to another of the network, eliminating of the previous one.
To finish with it, it had to create the first antivirus of the history, that was called Reaper.
The most Deadly viruses in History
But beyond this incident, from then on began to appear all type of virus, a tendency that is still common today. During these more than 40 years, there have been very few deadly viruses.
Although in some cases it is difficult to delimit its impact, we present you the list of the most dangerous in history in chronological order.
1. CIH / CHERNOBYL (1998)
There had been many viruses of this nature until then, but in 1998, with the Internet more than popular, the CIH virus caused destruction in the world.
It attacked Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows ME and is estimated to have infected some 60 million computers around the world, with losses of about $ 1 billion.
The virus, in fact, was lethal: it destroyed the files of the PC, even affecting the BIOS, so the PC could not boot.
2. MELISSA (1999)
At the height of internet technology companies, a file that ran on the Internet promised keys to enter 80 porn pages.
When you opened it, however, the virus was installed on your computer and was automatically forwarded to your Outlook contacts list.
And so over and over again. It was one of the first to take advantage of the spam technique to spread.
3. I LOVE YOU (2000)
In those days when people did not use WhatsApp, but an email began flooding the inboxes of millions of people. Your subject: I love you. And the body of the message: an alleged love letter.
Although it may seem a lie, it was a deadly trap. In a few minutes, it spread all over the world, with more than 50 million infected computers (including Pentagon equipment ).
The virus destroyed files and spreads among contacts.
It caused losses of more than 5.5 billion dollars.
4. SQL SLAMMER (2003)
In 2003, the viruses took another step forward, this time not to attack personal computers, but instead looked at the servers that shelter and give access to the Internet.
In this case, it took advantage of an error in the known databases to propagate quickly.
The result: The Internet was slowed down by the large number of denial-of-service attacks that ran in a few minutes, leaving virtually no Internet to countries like South Korea.
5. MYDOOM (2004)
Microsoft claims that Mydoom is the virus that has caused the most damage to its computers throughout history.
It spread through email and its consequences were lethal: affected the boot sector of the hard drives, so you could disable the equipment.
Microsoft came to offer $ 250,000 as a reward to know who the creator was and to stop this virus, which was spreading and causing losses of about 40 billion dollars worldwide. It also slowed down Internet access for days.
6. WANNACRY (2017)
Then came other major viruses such as Conficker, but the proliferation of antivirus and tools of protection has become more difficult to mass infection of computers.
In this 2017, many systems are affected with WannaCry another deadliest virus. A worm that instead of focusing its efforts on the end users, looked at large companies and networks with many connected computers.
The British public health companies like Telefonica were victims of this ransomware that spread with great speed thanks to those many companies that took to update their equipment with the security patches.
When it infected the machine, WannaCry asked for a ransom to pay in bitcoins (300 dollars). If you do not satisfy the payment, it will delete the files from the hard disk.
There is no estimate of the damage caused, but WannaCry has put back on the table the need to have the computers updated and to install antivirus, also on your mobile.
These are the 6 most dangerous computer viruses of all time history. If you have faced any kind of situations of hacking before, share them with our readers.
If you want to discuss anything regarding the above topic, start discussing through the comment section below.
Final words: Keep updated your computers or laptops and do not install any crack software or APKs which leads to hack your system.
