Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share DP49 Michelangelo Virus
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
DP49 Michelangelo Virus
Not to be confused by the famous artist, this is a different kind of masterpiece depending on who you are talking to. First detected on 4th of February 1991 in Australia, the virus was like most other viruses around the time in that it infected the boot sector.
The only thing is that no one knew their disks were infected until a particular day, similar to the Jerusalem virus. Instead of it being the 13th of October, this virus came to life on the 6th of March, the birthday of Michelangelo.
Outside of his birthday, there was no other reference in the virus to the artist. Michelangelo stuck when those researching the virus noticed that it activated only on that particular day. The actual significance of this date to the author is unknown. In fact, it’s hard to know if the author intended the virus to be named Michelangelo.
As for what this virus does upon activation is basically make the data on the disk irretrievable for the the average user. It does this by infecting the disks operating systems and even the master boot record in some cases.
These conditions only apply if the disk inserted was on that particular date but also the PC was an AT or PS/2 computer.
Though the virus was first noticed in 1991, it wasn’t until January 1992 when the virus became more well known. Apparently Intel’s LANSpool print server at the time was infected with this virus. This meant that the few computers that came out were accidentally shipped out.
This resulted in the public unrest as well as expert claims. At the time, one of the biggest people to push the battle against Michelangelo was John McAfee, an anti-virus company founder at the time.
Though these actions seemed to be unnecessary as there were only a few hundred of these faulty computers that were shipped.
As a result, people were warned and given tips to avoid March 6th. From advice to simply not run the computer on that day to changing the clock on the computer to skip March 6th entirely. By 1997, the number of cases of data loss were non-existent. By that point most people forgot about the existence of this virus entirely.
Similar to Jerusalem, no one knows the author’s name, or their intention with this virus. That being said, I’d argue that this virus along with Jerusalem virus were the first iterations of Trojan horses, a virus that would activate during certain circumstances like a date or a specific time of the day. Perhaps trojan horse viruses were first inspired by these particular viruses.
View all episodes
By dpappNot to be confused by the famous artist, this is a different kind of masterpiece depending on who you are talking to. First detected on 4th of February 1991 in Australia, the virus was like most other viruses around the time in that it infected the boot sector.
The only thing is that no one knew their disks were infected until a particular day, similar to the Jerusalem virus. Instead of it being the 13th of October, this virus came to life on the 6th of March, the birthday of Michelangelo.
Outside of his birthday, there was no other reference in the virus to the artist. Michelangelo stuck when those researching the virus noticed that it activated only on that particular day. The actual significance of this date to the author is unknown. In fact, it’s hard to know if the author intended the virus to be named Michelangelo.
As for what this virus does upon activation is basically make the data on the disk irretrievable for the the average user. It does this by infecting the disks operating systems and even the master boot record in some cases.
These conditions only apply if the disk inserted was on that particular date but also the PC was an AT or PS/2 computer.
Though the virus was first noticed in 1991, it wasn’t until January 1992 when the virus became more well known. Apparently Intel’s LANSpool print server at the time was infected with this virus. This meant that the few computers that came out were accidentally shipped out.
This resulted in the public unrest as well as expert claims. At the time, one of the biggest people to push the battle against Michelangelo was John McAfee, an anti-virus company founder at the time.
Though these actions seemed to be unnecessary as there were only a few hundred of these faulty computers that were shipped.
As a result, people were warned and given tips to avoid March 6th. From advice to simply not run the computer on that day to changing the clock on the computer to skip March 6th entirely. By 1997, the number of cases of data loss were non-existent. By that point most people forgot about the existence of this virus entirely.
Similar to Jerusalem, no one knows the author’s name, or their intention with this virus. That being said, I’d argue that this virus along with Jerusalem virus were the first iterations of Trojan horses, a virus that would activate during certain circumstances like a date or a specific time of the day. Perhaps trojan horse viruses were first inspired by these particular viruses.