Most Destructive Computer Viruses of All Time

When we talk about computer security, the destructive computer viruses are the leading threat. It can destroy a single program or the whole computer system instead.

The term computer virus was coined by US student of University of Southern California‘s School of Engineering, Fred Cohen, in 1985.

What is Virus?

A computer virus is a malicious program that self-replicates by copying itself to another program, doing serious damages to computer networks worldwide.

Computer virus spreads by itself into other executable code or documents, much like a flu virus.

Many viruses, loaded onto a user’s computer without the user’s knowledge, are harmful and can destroy data, perform malicious actions, slow down system resources, and log keystrokes.

Virus History

• The Creeper virus was first detected on ARPANET, the forerunner of the Internet, in the early 1970s.
• In 1982, a program called “Elk Cloner” was the first personal destructive computer virus to appear “in the wild”—that is, outside the single computer or [computer] lab where it was created.
• In 1984 Fred Cohen from the University of Southern California wrote the first paper to explicitly call a self-reproducing program a “virus”.
• In 1986, Farooq Alvi Brothers created the first IBM PC virus in the “wild” in Lahore, Pakistan, which was a boot sector virus dubbed (c)Brain, reportedly to deter unauthorized copying of the software they had written.
• In 1992, the first virus to specifically target Microsoft Windows, WinVir was discovered, two years after the release of Windows 3.0.
• In 1996, Australian hackers created the Bizatch virus (“Boza” virus), which was the first known virus to target Windows 95.
• In late 1997 the encrypted, memory-resident stealth virus Win32.Cabanas was released—the first known virus that targeted Windows NT.

Computer viruses are now becoming malware and are getting more and more complicated, serving unhealthy targets.

Destructive computer viruses have so far attacked 55 million computers and victimized more than 2.5 to 3 million computers, and users have lost about $10 billion for such attacks.

Computer crimes are committed  thanks to these viruses, where malware programs are deceptively deployed on the user’s computer and steal sensitive user information such as bank account passwords and thus rob users’ money in the shortest time possible.

Some of these viruses even blackmail and threaten users of releasing their information.

The evolution of computer viruses has always been fascinating, and no matter how hard the security companies try, they will always be one step behind hackers and virus writers.

Here in this paper you can find a brief overview of the 10 most destructive and dangerous computer of all time:

ILOVEYOU

The virus infected a large number of Internet users in 2000, by sending the ILOVEYOU phrase to all those present in the victims’ address book. The malware was designed to hijack the passwords of users in the internet for its Filipino maker.

The ILOVEYOU destructive computer virus has been identified as one of the most destructive computer viruses ever created, and the reason is very clear: the virus has caused a great deal of damage and destruction around the systems of the world, causing some $ 10 billion in damage.

10% of all Internet-connected systems in the world had been infected with this virus, and governments and large organizations had been using the offline email system for some time to avoid being infected.

The virus was created by two Filipino programmers and the trick was that through social engines, they were trying to persuade millions of users to click an innocent looking email attachment labeled simply “I Love You.”

Once clicked, the infected file duplicated it to all of the users’ contacts and overwrote the users’ image files, making the system inaccessible. However, the two programmers were never found guilty because there was no rule for the crime at that time. The spread of ILOVEYOU virus led to the passage of legislation called the E-Commerce Law to deal with such crimes.

Code Red

Code Red Virus, unlike other malicious viruses that replicate, causing damages through e-mails, required an active Internet connection to infect the system, so that the user visiting different websites in the infected computer,  see the text “Hacked By Chinese”. The malicious virus could infiltrate more than one million computer devices that time.

Code Red destructive computer virus spread itself in different systems very fast  at the time. It’s interesting to know that in less than a week, Code Red was able to infect more than 7,000 servers, more interestingly, one of those servers belonged to the White House, and forced other government agencies to temporarily take down their own public websites as well.

Melissa

This destructive computer virus was created as a mass-mailing macro virus, an infected word document, in 1999 by David L. Smith.

This was posted online, claiming to be a list of passwords to adult websites. Once opened, it would mail itself to the user’s email contacts. The increased email traffic caused disruption to governments and corporations alike.

Storm Trojan

The Storm Worm (dubbed so by the Finnish company F-Secure) is a backdoor Trojan horse that affects computers using Microsoft operating systems, discovered on January 17, 2007.

The Storm Worm began attacking thousands of (mostly private) computers in Europe and the United States on Friday, January 19, 2007, using an e-mail message with a subject line about a recent weather disaster, “230 dead as storm batters Europe”.

During the weekend there were six subsequent waves of the attack. As of January 22, 2007, the Storm Worm accounted for 8% of all malware infections globally.

Sasser

Sasser is a computer worm that affects computers running vulnerable versions of the Microsoft operating systems Windows XP and Windows 2000. Sasser spreads by exploiting the system through a vulnerable port.

Sasser affected millions of Windows XP and 2000 computers. It found a way to manipulate an exploit in the Local Security Authority Subsystem Services. Damages were estimated in the billions of dollars as well as forcing airlines and governments to shut down.

My Doom

One of the fastest spreading virus of all time, My Doom (also known as a worm and as Win32. Mydoom. A) infected one in 12 emails at its peak in 2004.

Mydoom was named by Craig Schmugar, an employee of computer security firm McAfee and one of the earliest discoverers of the worm.

Users would open an attachment like “Mail Transaction Failed”. Its aim was to take down websites like Google and Lycos. It managed to take out Google for almost a day!

Zeus

Zeus is Trojan horse malware package that runs on versions of Microsoft Windows. In 2009, Zeus targeted windows computers to use them to perform criminal acts. It infected targets through phishing scams or downloads.

It compromised accounts from many leading banks and corporations. It stole details of social media accounts, bank accounts, and email addresses.

Zeus is very difficult to detect even with up-to-date antivirus and other security software as it hides itself using stealth techniques. Around $70 million was stolen and over 100 arrests made.

Conficker

Conficker is a computer worm targeting the Microsoft Windows operating system that was first detected in November 2008. It infected millions of computers including government, business and home computers in over 190 countries.

It would reset account lockout settings and block access to antivirus sites and windows updates. It would then lock out user accounts. Scareware was then used to scam money from users.

Stuxnet

Stuxnet is a malicious computer worm, first uncovered in 2010, and targets SCADA systems and is believed to be responsible for causing substantial damage to Iran’s nuclear program.

Spread through infected USB drives, it ruined 1/5 of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges. If the infected computer used Siemens software, it would alter the speed of the machinery it controlled, causing it to tear apart.

On 1 June 2012, an article in The New York Times said that Stuxnet is part of a US and Israeli intelligence operation called “Operation Olympic Games”, started under President George W. Bush and expanded under President Barack Obama.

CryptoLocker

Cryptolocker was a cyberattack using the CryptoLocker ransomware that occurred from 5 September 2013 to late May 2014. It is one of the first ransomware attacks.

This virus encrypted files on hard drives. The only way to remove the encryption was to pay a ransom by a certain deadline. The attack utilized a trojan that targeted computers running Microsoft Windows.

Law enforcement managed to stop the ransom operation, but not before $27 million was paid.