10 Deadliest Computer Viruses of All Time
- 3 years ago
10 Deadliest Computer Viruses of All Time
https://art.tn/view/2453/en/10_deadliest_computer_viruses_of_all_time/
etting a computer virus has happened to many users in some fashion or another. To most, it is simply a mild inconvenience, requiring a cleanup and then installing that antivirus program that you’ve been meaning to install but never got around to.
However, in other cases, it can be a complete disaster, with your computer turning into a very expensive brick which which no amount of antivirus can protect. In this list, we will highlight some of the worst and notorious computer viruses that have caused a lot of damage in real life.
Zeus
Zeus is a Trojan horse made to infect Windows computers so that it will perform various criminal tasks. The most common of these tasks are usually man-in-the-browser keylogging and form grabbing. The majority of computers were infected either through drive-by downloads or phishing scams.
First identified in 2009, it managed to compromise thousands of FTP accounts and computers from large multinational corporations and banks such as Amazon, Oracle, Bank of America, Cisco, etc.
Sasser
A Windows worm first discovered in 2004, it was created by computer science student Sven Jaschan, who also created the Netsky worm. While the payload itself may be seen as simply annoying (it slows down and crashes the computer, while making it hard to reset without cutting the power), the effects were incredibly disruptive, with millions of computers being infected, and important, critical infrastructure affected.
Melissa
Named after an exotic dancer from Florida, it was created by David L. Smith in 1999. It started as an infected Word document that was posted up on the alt.sex usenet group, claiming to be a list of passwords for pornographic sites. This got people curious and when it was downloaded and opened, it would trigger the macro inside and unleash its payload.
The virus will mail itself to the top 50 people in the user’s email address book and this caused an increase of email traffic, disrupting the email services of governments and corporations.
Code Red
Code Red first surfaced on 2001 and was discovered by two eEye Digital Security employees. It was named Code Red because the the pair were drinking Code Red Mountain Dew at the time of discovery.The worm targeted computers with Microsoft IIS web server installed, exploiting a buffer overflow problem in the system. It leaves very little trace on the hard disk as it is able to run entirely on memory, with a size of 3,569 bytes.
I LOVE YOU
ILOVEYOU is considered one of the most virulent computer virus ever created. It managed to wreck havoc on computer systems all over the world with around $10 billion worth of damages. 10% of the world’s computers were believed to have been infected. It was so bad that governments and large corporations took their mailing system offline to prevent infection.The virus was created by two Filipino programers, Reonel Ramones and Onel de Guzman. What it did was use social engineering to get people to click on the attachment; in this case, a love confession.
https://art.tn/view/2453/en/10_deadliest_computer_viruses_of_all_time/
etting a computer virus has happened to many users in some fashion or another. To most, it is simply a mild inconvenience, requiring a cleanup and then installing that antivirus program that you’ve been meaning to install but never got around to.
However, in other cases, it can be a complete disaster, with your computer turning into a very expensive brick which which no amount of antivirus can protect. In this list, we will highlight some of the worst and notorious computer viruses that have caused a lot of damage in real life.
Zeus
Zeus is a Trojan horse made to infect Windows computers so that it will perform various criminal tasks. The most common of these tasks are usually man-in-the-browser keylogging and form grabbing. The majority of computers were infected either through drive-by downloads or phishing scams.
First identified in 2009, it managed to compromise thousands of FTP accounts and computers from large multinational corporations and banks such as Amazon, Oracle, Bank of America, Cisco, etc.
Sasser
A Windows worm first discovered in 2004, it was created by computer science student Sven Jaschan, who also created the Netsky worm. While the payload itself may be seen as simply annoying (it slows down and crashes the computer, while making it hard to reset without cutting the power), the effects were incredibly disruptive, with millions of computers being infected, and important, critical infrastructure affected.
Melissa
Named after an exotic dancer from Florida, it was created by David L. Smith in 1999. It started as an infected Word document that was posted up on the alt.sex usenet group, claiming to be a list of passwords for pornographic sites. This got people curious and when it was downloaded and opened, it would trigger the macro inside and unleash its payload.
The virus will mail itself to the top 50 people in the user’s email address book and this caused an increase of email traffic, disrupting the email services of governments and corporations.
Code Red
Code Red first surfaced on 2001 and was discovered by two eEye Digital Security employees. It was named Code Red because the the pair were drinking Code Red Mountain Dew at the time of discovery.The worm targeted computers with Microsoft IIS web server installed, exploiting a buffer overflow problem in the system. It leaves very little trace on the hard disk as it is able to run entirely on memory, with a size of 3,569 bytes.
I LOVE YOU
ILOVEYOU is considered one of the most virulent computer virus ever created. It managed to wreck havoc on computer systems all over the world with around $10 billion worth of damages. 10% of the world’s computers were believed to have been infected. It was so bad that governments and large corporations took their mailing system offline to prevent infection.The virus was created by two Filipino programers, Reonel Ramones and Onel de Guzman. What it did was use social engineering to get people to click on the attachment; in this case, a love confession.