Archives - History of Antivirus

On this day in history – Early destructive Apple virus from 1988

June, 1988: The CyberAIDS and Festering HateApple ProDOS viruses spreads from underground pirate BBS systems and starts infecting mainstream networks. Festering Hate was the last iteration of the CyberAIDS series extending back to 1985 and 1986. Unlike the few Apple viruses that had come before which were essentially annoying, but did no damage, the Festering […]

On this day in history – The WannaCry ransomware attack spreads globally

May 12, 2017: The WannaCry ransomware attack was a May 2017 worldwide cyberattack by the WannaCry ransomware cryptoworm, which targeted computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system by encrypting data and demanding ransom payments in the Bitcoin cryptocurrency. It propagated through an exploit in older Windows systems. While Microsoft had released patches previously to close […]

On this day in history – Graybird a Trojan horse also known as Backdoor appears

April 2, 2003: Graybird is a Trojan horse that hides its presence on the compromised computer and downloads files from remote Web sites. There are many variations of this virus such as Backdoor.Graybird.P (the most recently discovered variation). It affected Windows 2000, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, […]

On this day in history – Witty worm exploits holes in IBM products

March 19, 2004: The Witty worm is a record-breaking worm in many regards. It exploited holes in several IBM Internet Security Systems products. It was the first worm to take advantage of vulnerabilities in the very pieces of software designed to enhance network security, and carried a destructive payload, unlike previous worms and it spread […]

On this day in history – Ransomware Locky infects several million computers

On February 18, 2016, the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center paid a $17,000 ransom in the form of bitcoins for the decryption key for patient data. The Hospital was infected by ransomware Locky, it was the delivery of an email attachment disguised as a Microsoft Word invoice that contained malicious macros. This has led to increased […]

On this day in history – Happy99 worm appears spreading through email and usenet

January 20, 1999: The Happy99 worm first appeared. It invisibly attaches itself to emails, displays fireworks to hide the changes being made, and wishes the user a happy New Year. It modifies system files related to Outlook Express and Internet Explorer (IE) on Windows 95 and Windows 98.