Famous Computer Viruses

Computer viruses have bought misery to millions of computer users around the world. It is one of the negatives of the computer world we live in today. This article takes a look at ten of the world's most famous computer viruses.

Morris Worm

The Morris Worm goes back to 1988. Its creator claimed the program was invented to crawl the internet (at this stage in its very early days) to investigate its size. It did, however, cause major damage to computers. It was capable of infecting computers many times over, each time causing more problems and potentially resulting in it eventually becoming unusable.

Michelangelo Virus

This was given its name due to it being programmed to attack on 6th March, the date of Michelangelo's birthday. Once installed on a computer it lay dormant, with all infected computers being attacked on the same date. The virus caused massive data loss.

Melissa Virus

This was named after a topless dancer in Florida. It was spread via emails which contained a Microsoft Word document. Once the document was opened it infected the computer and sent the same email to the first fifty addresses in the receiver's email address book. Large corporations and organisations were infected, including some government networks.

I Love You Virus

The I Love You virus appeared in emails titled "I love you" with an attached text file, which the email claimed was a love letter. When this was opened it would attack the computer and send it to all email addresses in the recipient's address book. This meant it quickly spread widely. Along with millions of other computers across the world, it infected the White House and Pentagon computers.

Conficker Virus

The Conficker virus infected millions of Windows users including the British and French military computer networks. It linked infected computers and could be controlled by a central computer, run by its creators.

Bugbear

This virus copied itself to the hard drive of computers via Microsoft Outlook and Internet Explorer but exploiting a security hole. Once installed onto a computer it was also capable of infecting any computers it shared a network with. So, if it infected one computer within a business network it could soon infect the entire network. The virus was also sent to others in the address book of the receiver. Bugbear copied any usernames, passwords and bank details the user typed into their computer and sent this information via email.

Code Red Virus

This attacked a large number of websites and meant that instead of viewing a website, visitors would see a message stating that the website had been hacked. Amongst the websites it infected were a number of US government sites.

Nimda Virus

This first attacked exactly a week after 9/11 and was therefore thought to be connected, something that was later found not to be the case. Unlike most computer viruses, it spread in several different ways, including via email, across shared networks, and to those who had browsed infected websites. It targeted computers using Microsoft Windows.

Sasser Virus

This exploited holes in Microsoft Windows and caused computers to shut down. Some large organisations and corporations were impacted, including the European Commission, British Airways and Goldman Sachs.

Blaster Virus

Blaster attacked computers using the Microsoft Windows XP and 2000 operating systems. It caused the overuse of memory and therefore eventually resulted in computers crashing. The virus would start up again every time the computer was restarted.

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