Tag: virus
Tech Time Warp: The One-Two-Three Viral Punch of August 2003
August qualifies as the dog days of summer. It’s a good time to take it easy and use some PTO. But that’s not something the network administrators of 2003 could do, thanks to an onslaught of viruses. August 2003 brought...
Tech Time Warp: The brothers behind the “Brain” PC virus
Over the years, the motives for malware creation have ranged from simple curiosity to monetary gain. In the case of the Alvi brothers from Pakistan, it was revenge, dished up on a floppy disk.
Tech Time Warp: Klez.H virus confuses with spoofed emails
It is possible the creator of Klez was rather indecisive. The malware, which confounded computer users in the early 2000s, was all at once a virus, a worm, and a Trojan horse. Basically, Klez contained every trick in the hacker...
Tech Time Warp: MyLife virus tempts users with screensavers
Sometimes a computer user gets tired of flying toasters. That was the gamble taken by the creators of MyLife, a worm with multiple variants infecting PCs in March and April 2002.
Coronavirus helps spread computer viruses
Coronavirus has sent a chill through the world economy and has spread fear beyond its origin in the Wuhan province of China. As the virus threatens to become a global pandemic, hackers and cybercriminals are using public apprehension over the...
Tech Time Warp: Bagle worm spreads through its simplicity
On Jan. 18, 2004, computer users were served a “bagle” that would ruin anyone’s appetite. Also known as the “Beagle” worm, Bagle does not refer to the popular breakfast food that it shares a pronunciation with, despite their different spellings....
Tech Time Warp: Jerusalem malware inspires antivirus industry
Even malware can produce silver linings — at least in the case of the Jerusalem virus, which inspired computer science students to develop some of the first antivirus software. In November 1987, Omri Mann and Yuval Rakavi were computer science...
Tech Time Warp: SoBig.F worm creates some big problems
It’s amazing that the unwitting computer users of 2019 are still clicking on suspicious attachments considering the havoc such files have been wreaking for decades. Back in August 2003, the SoBig.F virus — the sixth variant of the SoBig worm...
Tech Time Warp: Flame, the virus with a massive controlled burn
The Flame virus first achieved infamy in May 2012, shortly after the United Nations’ International Telecommunications Union asked a security company to look in to the hacking of Iranian computers. Although not widespread — only a few hundred computers are...
Tech Time Warp: Chernobyl virus turns twenty
Twenty years ago, after dealing with the aftermath of the Melissa virus — launched on March 26 — network administrators weren’t prepared for what happened next. A month later, on April 26, a particularly nasty version of the CIH virus known as...
