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1983: Fred Cohen formally defined a virus as ‘a computer program
that can affect other computer programs by modifying them in such a
way as to include a (possibly evolved) copy of itself.’
1986: The first PC virus was created in Pakistan. It was named the
Brain virus – although somewhat comically it is misspelt as ‘Brian’ in
some commentaries. This was a boot sector virus and thus only
infected the boot records of floppy disks, but not hard drives. It spreadby users trading disks (those were the days!). It would occupy space
on the disk so that it could not be used. One novelty with the virus
was that it contained the name, address and phone numbers of its
creators. While it is not entirely clear why this was, one story is that
the creators (two brothers running a computer store in Lahore) wrote
the virus so that it would infect any computers running a bootleg copy
of a software program that they had written.
1987: The Christmas Tree Exec worm (actually a Trojan horse) spread
on IBM PCs, forcing many systems to shut down, including the
worldwide IBM network. A user would receive an e-mail Christmas
card that included executable code. If executed the program claimed
to draw a Christmas tree on the user’s screen. It did actually do this:
but it also sent itself to everyone on the user’s address lists.
1988: The first anti-virus program was compiled in Indonesia; two
years later Norton AntiVirus was launched by Symantec.
1988: Robert Morris (a graduate student at Cornell University)
launched an Internet worm program. It replicated itself over 6,000 hosts
with the inevitable result of bringing almost all of the network to a
stop. He was arrested, fined US $10,000, sentenced to three years’
probation and ordered to do 400 hours’ community service.
1988: Jerusalem (aka Friday the 13th) appeared. It was activated
every Friday the 13th affecting various files and deleting programs
that ran on that day. It also executed a software loop that would slow
down computers. It was widely imitated.
1991: The first widespread polymorphic virus was found. Polymorphic
viruses change their appearance at each new infection.
1992: Remember the Michangelo virus? Discovered in 1991, this
virus would erase IBM hard disks on March 6, the birthday of Michelangelo.
Hyped by media reporting (and misreporting) a solemn and
serious estimate was given that 5 million computers would crash. No
one knows how many did – but the highest estimate is 10,000 worldwide
(the lowest estimate being zero!). Apocalypse avoided then, but
awareness of the problem raised substantially.
1994: Post ironic or just plain stupid? One of the first e-mail hoaxes,
Good Times, told you by e-mail that a malicious virus would erase
your entire hard drive. All you had to do was open an e-mail titled
‘Good Times’ – which presumably you had just done, to read the
warning. The hoax kept coming around every 6–12 months.
1995: Word Concept – an interesting development because it showed
that Microsoft Word could be used as a platform for viruses. When
opened it executed a series of macros that made changes to documents
on templates. It spread as users swapped Word files.
1995: On November 15 Christopher Pile (alias ‘The Black Baron’)
appeared for sentencing for 11 offences under the Sections 2 and 3 of
the Computer Misuse Act at Exeter Crown Court, England. Pile had
already pleaded guilty to all charges and was sentenced to 18 months
in prison. The viruses were inspired by the British comedy/science
fiction series Red Dwarf.
1998: The first of many Trojan viruses to steal information from AOL
users was launched.
1999: The Melissa virus, which infects Word documents and then
very kindly e-mails itself to 50 people in your address book, spread
like wildfire. The virus also infects Word documents and e-mails them
as attachments (there goes confidentiality then). It spread faster than
any other virus.
1999: Disguised as a Y2K fix, Babylonia appeared. It is a virus capable
of downloading and updating itself from the Internet.
1999: The Love Bug/ILOVEYOU Virus hit Outlook, like Melissa.
The virus came as a VBS attachment and proceeded to delete files
(MP3, MP2 and JPG to name but a selection). The Virus also sends
usernames and passwords to the author of the virus. It was one of the
first viruses that used Visual Basic scripts to execute commands on a
computer.
2000: VBS.NewLove.A virus appeared – it overwrites every file on
the user’s system not currently in use.
2000: The Anna Kournikova virus (aka VBS/SST) appeared –
offering a picture of the tennis star. It operated in the same way as
Melissa and The Love Bug.
2001: The Code Red I and II attacked computer networks. It is a
worm, as opposed to a virus, and took advantage of a vulnerability in
Windows 2000 and NT server software. Microsoft itself admits that it
was affected.
The terminal velocity of viruses:

In 1986 there was one virus.

In 1990 estimates of the number of viruses ranged from 200 to
500.

One year later the highest estimate hit 1,000.

By 1992 estimates ranged from 1,000 to 2,300.

In 1996 the highest estimate went over 10,000.

In 1998 the top limit went over 20,000.

In 2000 the maximum number of viruses exceeded 50,000.

In May 2002 Sophos Anti-Virus detected 73,553 viruses while
Symantec listed 61,086.