Interesting facts about computer viruses, you should know

• Interesting facts about computer viruses, you should know

Several decades ago, computer viruses were rather an urban legend than a real threat, but after a few years the situation has changed dramatically. Currently, malware (popularly referred to as viruses) represent a major threat to all and sundry - from governments and large multinational corporations to small businesses and Internet users.

By different people, from experienced hackers to amateurs and even kids, computer viruses are malicious programs that - when the - create copies of themselves, taking root in other software code, data files or the boot sector of the disk.

Viruses often perform some types of malicious activity on the infected hosts, "eat" the hard drive space, consume more system resources, have access to confidential information, damage the data allocation structure reflect political or humorous messages on the user's screen, spam, set their keyloggers ( program recording keystrokes on the keyboard), and more.

Needless to say that the malware - it is a strong irritant, which, moreover, can lead to very dire consequences. Informed - it means armed, we thought and made for you a list of 25 interesting facts about computer viruses.

There is no one in the world who does not risk to be subject to virus attacks (regardless of how powerful he antivirus). Therefore, the more you know the better.

25. The very first computer virus was the Creeper, found in the ARPANET network, the predecessor of the Internet in the early 1970s. It was an experimental self-propel a program written in 1971 by Bob Thomas (Bob Thomas), an employee of the company BBN Technologies.

24. Currently, there are 3 main categories of malware: viruses, worms and trojans ( "Trojan horse"). Although their behavior is different from each other, they are all built on the same basic instructions and computer logic.

23. A typical malware creators - people male aged 14 to 25 years. So far we only know of a few female founders virus software.

22. Almost 70% of the creators of viruses are contracted on organized crime.

21. A macro virus and worm Melissa (March 1999) was so powerful that it forced Microsoft and other large companies to turn off their e-mail system to its complete destruction. Melissa virus broke all records for the propagation velocity.

20. Before the advent of local area networks, most viruses spread through a variety of removable media, in particular via the floppy disk. With the advent of the first personal computers, most users regularly exchanged information and programs stored on a floppy disk.

19. According to the report the intelligence services to ensure that Microsoft's security and organization Consumer Reports, 40% of US households are affected by computer viruses.

18. Amazon.com is the most exploited for the purpose of phishing attacks. It is followed by Apple and eBay.

17. The highest risk of being attacked by computer viruses - the United States, followed by Russia with them.

16. However, in the United States writing a computer virus is not considered illegal. Some other countries are beginning to draft cybercrime laws that are more stringent than in the United States. In Germany, for example, a mass exchange of computer viruses for any reason is prohibited, and in Finland more recently writing malicious software is illegal.

15. With the constant increase in the number of computer viruses and hackers, there are new types of computer crimes. Today, the so-called cyber crime carries a wide range of activities, such as cyber-terrorism, cyber warfare and kibervymogatelstvo.

14. In our time, more than 6,000 new viruses created and runs every month.

13. The most destructive computer virus of all time became the MyDoom email worm. It caused damage in the amount of $ 38 billion. It quickly spread, infecting an open network and every computer with access to them. In 2004, the virus infected 25% of all emails.

12. Becoming a member of the well-known international network of hackers Anonymous is actually very easy. For this reason, only some of them are elite hackers able to use the vulnerability of security systems in computer systems and write virus programs.

11. You do not infect a computer virus, just reading e-mail. This malicious program is activated only when you open a link or an infected application to the letter.

10. It is estimated that up to 90% of emails contain malicious software.

9. By 1990 it was known some 50 computer viruses. In the late 1990s the number of viruses has increased dramatically to 48,000.

8. Some virus writers actually may be the children who create them, just to test their programming skills.

7. Around 32% of all computers in the world (that is, almost every third PC) infected with some malware.

6. In order to detect their vulnerabilities, Facebook is paying $ 500 to anyone who can hack into the system.

5. Despite the best efforts in the field of computer security research and development, currently there is no anti-virus program that could detect all viruses.

4. Viruses can be written in different programming languages, including assamblera language, scripting languages ​​(eg, Visual Basic or Perl), Java and macro languages ​​(eg, VBA language).

3. One of the three main types of malicious software - "Trojan horse" - got its name from the ancient Greek story of the wooden horse, which was used to help the Greek army to sneak into Troy.

2. Created Filipino programmers Reonelom Ramones (Reonel Ramones) and Onel de Guzman (Onel de Guzman) in 2000, a computer virus known as ILOVEYOU, or LoveLetter, has become the most destructive virus in the world (once in the Guinness Book of Records). According to estimates, the virus has infected more than 3 million computers worldwide.

1. Modern computer viruses are causing economic losses of billions of dollars each year, causing system crashes, consuming resources computer systems, damaging the data, increasing the cost of maintenance of computers and so on.