A historical timeline of computer viruses
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1949 A Hungarian scientist developed the theory of self-replicating programs.
1950-1970 A variety of electrical and computer complications lead to the development of current viruses, including the illegal tapping of telephone “blue oxen” to intercept calls and telephone numbers.
Also during this time, the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center designed a computer “worm” to search for systems that were not working. Designed to create more efficient processing and use of computers, the “worm” became the ancestor of the current generation of destructive computer viruses.
1983 One of the most famous cases of hacking, young hackers broke into US government computer systems with an Apple computer and a modem.
That same year, a doctoral candidate from the University of Southern California named a computer program that affects other programs by changing itself or the host program in some way as a “computer virus.”
1986 The beginning of modern global computer virus infections.
Examples include: Programmers in Pakistan who released the first personal computer virus, titled “The Brain.”
1988 A worm designed by a 23-year-old programmer invaded the computers of the ARPANET (a division of the United States Department of Defense) disabling 6000 of their computers.
1991 Launch of PGP (Pretty Good Privacy), a free data encryption tool.
1991-2001 Many well-known viruses were released, such as: “Melissa”, which automatically and quickly sent replicas to email addresses contained in Microsoft Outlook; “I Love You,” which sent copies of passwords and usernames stored on personal computers to the Philippine designer of this program; The Anna Kournikova virus “, which was especially alarming for computer users and programmers, as it was the beginning of the use of a” toolbox “software that can help almost anyone to create a computer virus.
2001 The Code Red worm (which affects systems using Microsoft Windows NT and Windows 2000 server software); the “Nimda” virus and the “Klez” worm were released, which was designed to also disable many of the common antivirus software protections on the market at the time.
2002 The “root” servers, which are used to provide communication over the Internet, were affected by a virus that caused the need for greater protection of the Internet infrastructure.
2003 The “Slammer” worm caused damage to companies around the world.
2004 The “MyDoom” worm was introduced, a virus that attempts to trick people into opening email attachments containing the virus by making statements in the message or re: form.
Antivirus software development
Many companies and countries claim to have developed and released the first antivirus software product.
1987 European Bernt Fix claims to have created antivirus software
1988 Antivirus software Dr. Solomon’s Antivirus Toolkit It was released by Alan Solomon of Great Britan.
1990s By then, there were approximately 19 antivirus software, including Symantec’s popular Norton Anti Virus software, McAfee’s ViruScan; and IBM antivirus.
1994 An acquisition of Symantec occurred that allowed it to acquire many of the smaller antivirus software protection companies, making it one of the largest antivirus software services available.
Large corporations were formed in the 1990s to develop and create antivirus software. During this time, the prominent company Kaspersky Labs was formed, as well as the development of the Antiviral Toolkit Pro (AVP) antivirus scanner system. International distribution and product support became paramount to combat computer viruses with the transmission of information around the world and the use of the Internet. Another important antivirus company during this time was the AVP and F Secure Anti Virus technologies license agreement.
As a result, several well-known antivirus software protection providers were developed and still exist today, including: ALWIL Software avast !, AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic, AVG Professional, eTrust EZ Armor Suite, F-Secure Anti-Virus, Kaspersky Anti-Virus, Virus, McAfee VirusScan, Norton AntiVirus, Panda Antivirus, and Trend PC-cillin.
With the development, growth and competition that these prominent antivirus software programs to choose from, each of them have tried to develop special functions and features like customization of scan controls, lock, parental controls, and advanced technology to make them stand out from the rest. crowd.
To learn as much as possible about viruses and develop the best possible virus protection software, developers study computer viruses to look for patterns in programming that allow them to better detect the familiar programming patterns used in many computer viruses and threats. including spyware. The antivirus software programs that are most effective are active in their information gathering efforts and in detecting threats before they reach your computer, as well as providing updates to detect viruses on a regular basis. It is important that the antivirus software program that you choose also includes protection against threats embedded in images and e-mail messages with all communications we make over the Internet and outside the computer.
Consumers should carefully research the products available and choose the combination of services and features that will be most beneficial to them and their family. Computer programmers are among some of the most creative and innovative minds in the world. As such, we may never find a “cure” for computer viruses, but perhaps we can find the right “medicine” in the form of an efficient, cost-effective, and easy-to-operate antivirus software system to keep our personal computers and information safe. .
