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DP46 Brief History of Malware
Over the past several episodes I’ve talked a little about computer viruses. From The Morris Worm to the ILOVEYOU virus. But there is another term to describe these types of viruses: Malware. It’s become so common that maybe some of you thought computer virus and malware were perhaps two separate things.
After all, we hardly ever hear the term computer virus being used. It’s mainly malware.
But anyway malware has evolved extensively over the years and I think it’s important to show the highlights and growth of malware over the past few decades.
After all, if we are to better protect ourselves, understanding the development before getting into specifics will help us moving forward.
Malware all started in the 1980s and 1990s. The biggest splash in this area was The Morris Worm. It was the first form of malware to spread across the internet. There were some other ones that are worth bringing up too. There was Brain, Jerusalem, Michelangelo, CIH and the Melissa virus. I’ll talk about those in detail another time.
Getting into the 2000s, we saw an upgrade of malware. They were rapidly growing, effectively doubling every year. The most notable malware was internet and email worms. You had ILOVEYOU but there were others. Examples are Anna Kournikova, Sircam, CodeRed worm, and Nimda. This was also around the time where phishing and other credit card scams emerged.
Since 2010 and over this past decade, malware is still prominent but it’s more so used to leverage compromised systems. Outside of the numerous breaches over the past decade you also had some other notable events. These pushed businesses to have stronger security measures. Some malware that you can look up and I will explore later are the Stuxnet worm, ZeroAccess, a Trojan horse.
Not until 2013 we started to see ransomware. This was malware that locked files on a user’s computer and users had to pay a ransom to get access to that information again. One notable one was CryptoLocker, another Trojan horse. You also had Gameover ZeuS which used keystroke logging to steal login details. Some other notable ones was 2017’s ransomwares WannaCry and Petya.
Lastly there is Thanatos, the ransomware that’s been released and allow hackers to accept Bitcoin payments.
As you can see from the overall history, malware has evolved and has impacted the world on larger scales. Of course there are all kinds of ways we can better protect ourselves. But I find the first step to better protect ourselves is to know exactly what we are up against.
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By dpappOver the past several episodes I’ve talked a little about computer viruses. From The Morris Worm to the ILOVEYOU virus. But there is another term to describe these types of viruses: Malware. It’s become so common that maybe some of you thought computer virus and malware were perhaps two separate things.
After all, we hardly ever hear the term computer virus being used. It’s mainly malware.
But anyway malware has evolved extensively over the years and I think it’s important to show the highlights and growth of malware over the past few decades.
After all, if we are to better protect ourselves, understanding the development before getting into specifics will help us moving forward.
Malware all started in the 1980s and 1990s. The biggest splash in this area was The Morris Worm. It was the first form of malware to spread across the internet. There were some other ones that are worth bringing up too. There was Brain, Jerusalem, Michelangelo, CIH and the Melissa virus. I’ll talk about those in detail another time.
Getting into the 2000s, we saw an upgrade of malware. They were rapidly growing, effectively doubling every year. The most notable malware was internet and email worms. You had ILOVEYOU but there were others. Examples are Anna Kournikova, Sircam, CodeRed worm, and Nimda. This was also around the time where phishing and other credit card scams emerged.
Since 2010 and over this past decade, malware is still prominent but it’s more so used to leverage compromised systems. Outside of the numerous breaches over the past decade you also had some other notable events. These pushed businesses to have stronger security measures. Some malware that you can look up and I will explore later are the Stuxnet worm, ZeroAccess, a Trojan horse.
Not until 2013 we started to see ransomware. This was malware that locked files on a user’s computer and users had to pay a ransom to get access to that information again. One notable one was CryptoLocker, another Trojan horse. You also had Gameover ZeuS which used keystroke logging to steal login details. Some other notable ones was 2017’s ransomwares WannaCry and Petya.
Lastly there is Thanatos, the ransomware that’s been released and allow hackers to accept Bitcoin payments.
As you can see from the overall history, malware has evolved and has impacted the world on larger scales. Of course there are all kinds of ways we can better protect ourselves. But I find the first step to better protect ourselves is to know exactly what we are up against.