Comments on: Happy birthday, Brain.A

Twenty years ago this month the first PC virus was discovered. It's extinct now, but its kin continues to pester computer users.

sombody had to...

say it...
in response to this part...
"The FBI on Thursday said computer crime cost U.S. businesses
$67.2 billion over a 12-month period, with viruses and worms the
biggest culprits."


If only they were smart enough to ditch windows...

[bitsplice]

...point out the obvious

If MS Windows suddenly stopped worldwide, then the bag guys would move on to the next major OS. Remember, the first worm didn't attack DOS, Windows, or Macs for that matter. Unix was the target, and this was before LINUX was even heard of. Crooks don't care which OS they use for their illegal activities.

[tkillya]

Not quite right...

I recall a trojan virus on the Apple II called Hi-res Chess. This was back in 1983, which predates Brain.A by three years. Back then, hi-res graphics were rare so it was tantalizing to see a hi-res chess game, which of course led to me installing it. It was hilarious though. The program mimicked the command prompt and spat back funny error messages whenever the user tried a command. If I recall right, the user had to reset the machine to get things back to normal, which qualifies it as a virus and not just a funny little program.

You're not quite right....

If I'm not mistaken, what you described was a malicious program
(that you actually had to install) and not a virus that had any self-
replicating abilities. Try again.

[wbenton]

What's there to celebrate about?

It might have been the 1st virus and it might also have been the birth of the AntiVirus industry... but no need to celebrate a virus.

However, I might see celebrating the birth of the Virus industry...