In November 1983 he used “virus” to describe self-replicating computer programs. In 1984 Cohen uses the phrase “computer virus” – as suggested by his teacher Leonard Adleman – to describe the operation of such programs in terms of “infection”. He defines a “virus” as “a program that can ‘infect’ other programs by modifying them to […]

In 1987 appearance of Lehigh virus (discovered at its namesake university), boot sector viruses such as Yale from USA, Stoned from New Zealand, Ping Pong from Italy, and appearance of first self-encrypting file virus, Cascade. Lehigh was stopped on campus before it spread to the wild, and has never been found elsewhere as a result. […]

One of the first real widespread infections, was “Brain” in 1986. From then, the number of viruses has grown exponentially. Most of the computer viruses written in the early and mid-1980s were limited to self-reproduction and had no specific damage routine built into the code. That changed when more and more programmers became acquainted with […]

Malware, short for “malicious software,” includes any software (such as a virus, Trojan, or spyware) that is installed on your computer or mobile device. The software is then used, usually covertly, to compromise the integrity of your device. Most commonly, malware is designed to give attackers access to your infected computer. That access may allow […]

“Theory of self-reproducing automata”, the first known computer virus appeared in 1971 and was dubbed the “Creeper virus”. This computer virus infected Digital Equipment Corporation’s (DEC) PDP-10 mainframe computers running the TENEX operating system. The Creeper virus was eventually deleted with a program known as “The Reaper” created by Ray Tomlinson. Some people consider “The […]