Viruses are not new to the computer world. They have been around for as long as tech savvy people can remember and have caused irreparable damages from time to time. From initial day worms that corrupted data on the floppy dick, to current day viruses, which steal identity and are capable of causing losses in multimillion dollars, these smart programs have come a long way. A virus attack today is so damaging that companies usually have to resort to immediate damage control and need strong hard drive data recovery service.
Creating a virus is a challenging task and the people who manage that are nothing short of evil genius. The efforts and the eye to details is so meticulous, that viruses have successfully defeated IT giants like Microsoft on many occasions.
Melissa
Melissa took advantage of the porn fetish to spread itself and infect millions of computers in 1999. It was designed to take over Windows 98 and it managed to overload Microsoft servers, so much so that the company had to temporarily shut down its servers.
Melissa was named after a stripper and was designed by David L Smith with no intention to cause mass destruction in the computer world. The code and its planning was so successful, that it managed unimaginable reach and was on millions of computer within no time.
The mail containing the virus usually arrived from a known person and promised passwords of almost 80 pornographic websites. Once the file was opened, it mailed itself to the first 50 email ids on the computer and like that it was in and out with the blink of an eye.
Sasser
Sasser was developed by an 18 year old boy who managed to give big shots like Goldman Sachs sleepless nights. The worm was aimed at seizing Windows XP and Windows 2000. It targeted the LSAS function of windows and ensured that a computer cannot be turned off without switching it off from the socket.
IT industry was dumbfounded at the irony that LSAS is supposed to protect a computer by monitoring user logins and password changes and how easily an 18 year old school going lad could change the game. Many companies including Microsoft spent endless man hours, on virus removal services, to fix the problem and clean up the blot a kid had left on their reputation.
Concept
Concept Virus was created by Microsoft itself and is one of the few viruses known to have badly infected Microsoft word. It was circulated accidentally in the year 1995 through a CD rom and was widespread even before Microsoft took note of the issue. It is considered as one of the first macro worms to infect computers.
Conficker
Conficker is a virus of modern times. It was created in 2008, when world was at its peak of internet usage, so it managed to infect 15 million computers. This virus was one of the trickiest ones to handle in Microsoft’s history. Conficker was completely armed with the capabilities to crack administrator passwords and also knew how to copy itself to the USB drives and spread.
Conclusion
Computer viruses are created using the same codes that are used to develop software. Yet the difference in their utility is worlds apart. One is used to cause damage to other computers while the latter to improve life. They are like the two side of the same coin and will stay like that till they have the evil human mind supporting them. Computer Virus are the proof of the fact that our curious and careless nature will always land us in self-created technological doom.
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