The Origin of Computer Viruses

The concept of computer viruses actually originated quite early. Several years before the first commercial computer appeared, computer pioneer von Neumann (Von Neumann) John Von Neumann has sketched out the blueprint of a virus program in his paper "The Theory and Organization of Complex Automatic Devices". However, at the time, most computer experts could not imagine such a self-reproducing program.

In 1975, American science writer John Brunner wrote a book called "Shock Wave Rider", which described for the first time In the information society, the story of computers as a tool in the struggle between good and evil became one of the best-selling books of the year.

In the summer of 1977, Thomas.J.Ryan’s science fiction novel “The Adolescence of P-1” (The Adolescence of P-1) became a bestseller in the United States. The author here This book describes a virus that can infect each other among computers. The virus finally took control of 7,000 computers, causing a disaster. Things in the world of virtual science fiction finally began to become a nightmare for computer users after a few years.

At about the same time, in the famous AT&T Bell Labs in the United States, three young people played a game out of boredom after work: each other wrote programs that could eat others. programs to fight against each other. This game called "Core War" further embodies the concept of "infectiousness" of computer viruses.

On November 3, 1983, Fred Cohen, a student at the University of Southern California, wrote a program that would cause the system to crash under the UNIX system, but this program did not It attracted the attention and recognition of some professors. Cohen published these programs in papers in order to prove his theory, which caused quite a shock at the time. Cohen's program gave concrete shape to the concept of the destructive power of computer viruses.

However, this infectious and destructive program was actually called a "virus" in a monthly magazine of "Scientific American" two years later. A columnist named A.K. Dewdney was discussing the "Magnetic Core War" and the Apple Model 2 computer (no doubt, it was the Apple Model 2 computer that was popular at the time. At that time, the PC we were familiar with was basically When there was no trace of it), this program began to be called a virus. From now on, we finally have a "virus" name to call this kind of infectious or destructive program.

The first real computer virus

In 1987, the first computer virus C-BRAIN was finally born (this does not seem to be a cause for celebration). Generally speaking, the industry agrees that this is the true ancestor of computer viruses with complete characteristics. This virus program was written by a pair of Pakistani brothers: Basit and Amjad. They ran a store selling personal computers in the local area. Since the local culture of piracy and copying of software is very popular, so Their purpose is mainly to prevent their software from being copied at will. As long as someone pirates their software, C-BRAIN will occur and eat up the remaining space on the hard drive of the pirate.

This virus was not very lethal at the time, but later some interested people used C-BRAIN as a blueprint to create some deformed viruses. Other new virus creations have also emerged one after another, not only by individuals, but also by many creative groups (such as NuKE, Phalcon/Skism, VDV). Various types of anti-virus, anti-virus and anti-virus software and professional companies have also emerged. For a time, various virus creation and anti-virus programs were constantly being introduced, like a hundred schools of thought contending.

Famous viruses in the DOS era

The so-called "viruses in the DOS era" mean that they are old antiques that have existed since the DOS era. Readers, please do not think that you have entered Windows now. In the 1995/98 era, you would not be infected with viruses from the DOS era. In fact, since Windows 95/98 is at best an operating system based on DOS, even under Windows 95/98, you will still get angry if you are not careful!

Jerusalem

This antique virus actually has a more widely known nickname, called "Black Friday." Why such an interesting nickname? The reason is simple: as long as the 13th is a Friday again, the virus will attack. When an attack occurs, all programs executed by the user will be terminated, and the symptoms are quite severe.

Michelangelo (Michelangelo)

For some early computer users, Michelangelo's name is really famous and well-known. The famous reason is not only that it has the name of a generation of art master Michelangelo, but more importantly, its lethality is astonishing: every year on March 6, Michelangelo’s birthday (that’s why it is called “Michelangelo”). "Ro" reason), the virus will use the Format hard drive to wish the master a happy birthday. As a result, all the information you worked hard to create was destroyed in one day, and will never be recovered.

Monkey

Monkey is said to be the first "boot type" virus. As long as you use a system floppy disk infected by Monkey to boot, the virus will invade your computer. In the computer, and then wait for the opportunity to remove the hard disk partition table, so that the "Invalid drive specification" message will appear as soon as you start the computer. Compared with "file-type" viruses that can only be infected by executing infected files, Monkey is indeed more difficult to deal with.

Music Bug

This virus that sings loudly when it attacks, and even causes data loss and inability to boot, is a virus native to Taiwan. Therefore, when you hear bursts of music automatically coming from your computer, don’t think that your computer is smarter than others, as it is probably poisoned.

In fact, there are many viruses that can sing. There is another famous virus (I forget its name) that sings "Two Tigers" when it attacks!

The types of viruses in the DOS era were quite complex, and people were constantly rewriting existing viruses. In the later period, some people even wrote the so-called "twin engine", which can create a more diversified appearance of a virus, making it difficult for people to guard against it! The symptoms of virus attacks are even more varied. Some will sing, some will delete files, some will Format the hard drive, and some will display various graphics and sound effects on the screen. Fortunately, these antique-level viruses from the DOS era can be easily eliminated by most anti-virus software, so their lethality is no longer as good as before.

The advent of the Windows era

With the popularity of Windows 3.1 around the world, it has officially announced that the personal computer operating environment has entered the Windows era. Immediately afterwards, Windows 95/98 became so popular that almost all personal computers now operate under Windows. The most well-known ones in the Windows environment are probably "macro viruses" and "32-bit viruses".

Macro virus

With the development of various software packages under Windows, many softwares have begun to provide so-called "macro" functions, allowing users to "create macros". Record some tedious processes into a simple instruction to facilitate your own operation.

However, this convenient function, after being designed by thoughtful people, has finally brought "file-type" viruses to a new milestone: traditional file-type viruses will only infect executable files with the suffix exe and com, while macro viruses It will infect data files stored in Word, Excel, AmiPro, Access and other software. What's even more exaggerated is that this macro virus is cross-operating platforms. Take the Word macro virus as an example. It can infect Word files and common templates on DOS, Windows 3.1/95/98/NT, OS/2, Macintosh and other systems.

Among these macro viruses, the most famous one, apart from Melissa to be mentioned later, is the infamous Taiwan NO.1B. The attack scenario of this virus is: on the 13th of every month, as long as you open a Word document, a dialogue window will appear on the screen, asking you a complex arithmetic question. If you get the answer wrong (probably only Superman can calculate this kind of complex arithmetic quickly), twenty windows will be opened in a row, and then another question will appear. This will repeat until the system resources are exhausted and the computer crashes.

Although macro viruses are highly contagious, fortunately their destructive power is not too strong, and the detoxification method is relatively easy. You can even detoxify them manually without the need for anti-virus software.

32-bit virus

The so-called "32-bit virus" is a new type of file virus produced after Windows 95. Although it also infects exe execution files , but this virus specifically attacks 32-bit Windows programs. The most famous one is the CIH virus that became very popular last year.

The great thing about the CIH virus is that it can dismantle its body and stuff it into the infected file. Therefore, the size of the infected file will not change, and it is not easy for anti-virus software to detect it. The last version of the CIH virus, in addition to attacking on the 26th of every month and formatting your hard drive, sometimes destroys the data in the motherboard BIOS, making it impossible to boot your computer! Although most of the current anti-virus software has the latest virus code that can deal with this difficult virus, because it is so powerful, everyone should be careful. (CIH may occur again on April 26 this year. Will you be okay?)

The Revolution of the Internet

Some people say that the emergence of the Internet has triggered a new wave of information revolution. Because on the Internet, the distance between people has been shortened to a very small distance, and the establishment of various websites and the use of search engines make it easy for everyone to obtain the information they want from the Internet.

The popularity of the Internet has created a massive flow of information, but for computer hackers who are interested in spreading viruses and stealing other people's accounts and passwords, the Internet provides an excellent channel. Therefore, although we ordinary users enjoy the convenience brought by the Internet, we also fall into another fear.

New shortcuts for virus spread

Due to the convenience of the Internet, virus infection routes are more diversified. Traditional viruses may be distributed in the form of disks or other storage media, but now, as long as you send a file to a friend in an email or ICQ, you may infect him or her; even downloading a file from the Internet may A file containing a virus was received.

However, although the Internet makes it easier to spread viruses, in fact, this kind of virus is still a traditional type. As long as you do not download files from some unknown websites (because famous websites do not want to destroy them) own sign, most of the files provided for download have been anti-virus processed), install anti-virus software, and update virus codes at any time. Don’t rush to execute the downloaded files, and perform virus checking steps first (because programs infected by traditional viruses, as long as you do not If it is carried out, there will be no infections and attacks), and poisoning can probably be avoided.

The rise of second-generation viruses

The various viruses discussed above are basically traditional viruses, which are the so-called "first-generation viruses" . There is such a way of calling them, mainly to distinguish the latest new viruses that have appeared after the boom of the Internet. Because this newly emerged virus is very different from traditional viruses in nature, some people call it a "second-generation virus."

The biggest difference between the second-generation virus and the first-generation virus is that the second-generation virus is transmitted through the browser. This development is really a bit jaw-dropping!

It turns out that in order to facilitate web designers to create more exciting animations on web pages and make web pages more spatial, several large companies joined forces to develop Active X and Java technologies. Through these technologies, it can even identify the software version you are using and recommend which software you should download to update the version. It is a very convenient tool for most ordinary users. But if you want the animations of these web pages to execute normally, the browser will automatically download these Active X and Java applets programs to the hard disk. In this process, developers of malicious programs also use the same channels to penetrate into personal computers through the Internet. This is the "second generation virus" that has emerged recently, also known as "network virus".

When soldiers come to block it, when water comes to cover it up

The second-generation viruses that are currently common are actually not very destructive. For example, the "window bomb" that keeps opening windows in the browser brings with it The electronic timer makes a "dong dong" sound, such as "Noisy Bear", etc., as long as the browser is closed, it will not have any impact on the computer. However, with the rapid development of technology, there is no guarantee that newer and more destructive viruses will not appear.

However, we don’t need to be too pessimistic because of this trend, let alone refuse to use computers to access the Internet out of fear. Throughout the history of computer development, the confrontation between viruses and anti-virus software has been ongoing. As long as you are careful, you can still swim happily in the world of the Internet.