There have been many computer viruses over the years, some with more destructive power than others. The virus thought to be the first was called Creeper and was not intended to cause any harm, just displaying a message which read “I’m the creeper, catch me if you can!”. It was written in 1971 by an American called Bob Thomas, who designed it to infect a network called ARPANET, one of the precursors to the internet. [Read more...]
Who Writes Computer Viruses and Why?
February 10, 2011 By
The usual depiction of a computer virus author in the media is of a rather geeky computer nerd with no friends, who spends his entire day glued to a screen and writes a virus either for fun and “because he can” or for some petty revenge against the system. [Read more...]
Computer Viruses and Malware
February 7, 2011 By
Computer viruses are a type of “malware”, or “malicious software”, which is software intended to access a computer with the owner being unaware and having given no consent. The term “malware” is a fairly recent one so although viruses are just one type of malware, the word “virus” is often used to cover other types, such as worms, spyware, Trojan horses and adware. [Read more...]