Happy Birthday to the virus

January 25, 2006 This month sees the 20th birthday of the PC computer virus – Brain. Brain was a boot sector virus that first emerged in January 1986, propogated via floppy disk and was relatively innocuous in contrast to modern computer afflictions. Brain was not the first computer virus – that was written by University of Southern California PhD student Fred Cohen for a Vax mini computer, with Cohen presenting his findings to a security seminar in November, 1983. Brain was the first virus written for a Personal Computer and it targeted the newly released IBM PC. As the internet has networked the world, file sharing and hence computer viruses have become commonplace with rapid propogation that can often cause havoc within hours. Such viruses have become modern scourges, with their names known to millions: Melissa, the LoveBug, Sobig, and Code Red. The world’s first mobile phone virus was detected in June 2004 – (a “worm” known as Cabir which infects Symbian OS phones and devices) and as home networks proliferate, it is quite possible that your house will one day be infected.

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