Today we are going to look at five of
the most costly computer viruses ever.
Slow
computer random shutdown, must be a virus. Most of us have probably experienced
a computer virus in one form or another. However not all viruses are created
equal most can be sorted with a quick cleanup and an update of your antivirus,
others though can spread like wildfire cause billion of dollars worth of damage
and even be compared to a weapon of mass destruction.
5.
I LOVE YOU
On May 4th, 2000 the
ILOVEYOU computer virus exploded onto the internet leaving behind in a trail of
destruction crashed computers and deleted files causing around $10 billion of
damage. The virus was created by two programmers from the Philippines. It worked
its way onto unsuspecting people’s computers through an email with a subject line
“I love you” and an attachment
titled “love letter for you”, people
who opened the email and attachment unlocked the virus onto their system which
would proceed to overwrite all their files steal their passwords and
automatically send copies of itself to the victim’s list of contact. Despite going
into hiding the pair who created the virus were eventually tracked down and
arrested however neither were ever charged thanks to insufficient evidence and
a lack of Philippines law prohibiting the creation of computer malware. I love
you is considered as one of the most aggressive computer virus ever
created and is thought to have affected over 10 million of the world’s computer
including those of governments and large corporations.
4.
CODE RED
The infamous code red hacked by Chinese
computer worm. This little number was discovered by two EI digital security
employees who named it after the cans of code red flavor mountain dew that they
were sipping on at the time. This devastating virus attacked at multiple angles
racking up billions of dollar worth damages. The code red worm targeted
computers with specifically with the Microsoft
IIS web server installed, exploiting a small problem that would end up
having huge consequences. Once the computer gets infected from code red worm it would duplicate itself
hundreds of times until the majority of the computer’s system were eaten up. The
worm would then proceed to launch a denial of service attack on several IP
addresses which even led to the bug attacking the white house website. Code red also allows for back door access to
the hosted server allowing for remote computer access. The virus seemed to chew
through everything in its path peaking just six days after its launch when it
was discovered to be hosted on over 359000 computers simultaneously. The only
trace code red left behind was a message on affected web page that read simply “Hacked by Chinese”. A message that has
become viral meme I its own right, it’s estimated that code red affected up to
30% of six million Microsoft IIS Servers at the time causing around $2 billion
in lost productivity.
3.
SASSER
Sasser is another windows worm that first
started hijacking computers in 2004. Sasser was created by a computer science
student Sven Jackson when he was
just 18 years old. Teenage Sven was also the mastermind who created the equally
devastating netsky computer worm. The
sasser worm infiltrated computers operating on windows XP and windows 2000,
rapidly spreading from one computer to another the internet, thanks to an open
port found in the system’s vulnerable buffer overflow. Sasser caused infected
computers to crash and shut down without warning. Now for the average user that
would be really annoying but seeing assassins spread to over a million
computers the effects were significantly worse than just an annoyance. The computer
worm affected important global infrastructure from airlines to hospitals taking
the estimated damage costs skywards of $18 billions, despite putting out a patch
the virus continued to spread due to many computers neglecting to update. Microsoft eventually offered a $250000
bounty for information leading to the creator which saw Sven being arrested on
May 7th, 2004. Despite the sasser-worm’s insane financial cost Sven
luckily tried as minor and received just a 21-month suspended sentence.
2.
CONFICKER
Conficker also known as down up is a computer
worm of unknown origin that made its first appearance in 2008. Since its
discovery conficker has infected millions of computers around the world and
continues to do so to this day. Conficker is often regarded as the most
persistent computer virus of all time by infecting and essentially linking
millions of computers. Conficker has built itself up to be a fully fledged
botnet a black market supercomputer if you will, at its height conficker had
its claws sunk into at least 10 million individual IP addresses and as it grew
stronger. There were very few computers network in the world secure enough to
withstand a targeted attack. The director of FBI cyber division said that the
virus has the potential for damage equal to a weapon of mass destruction and
yet conficker has only ever been used once to spread a rather minor strain of
scareware intended to frighten unsuspecting users into downloading fake
antivirus software not exactly what we were expecting. Despite the one
incredibly tame conficker attack due to how widespread the virus was its still
estimated to of course $9 billion worth of damages. Three Ukrainian men were
apparently arrested in 2011 in relation to the creation of conficker. They
lived in penthouse apartments drove blacked out Porsches and yet they all
claimed to only earn $30000 a year, strong links were found on the men’s computer’s
however it’s unknown whether or not they were ever charged.
1. MYDOOM
A fitting name for this highly
destructive computer virus, after emerging in 2004 mydoom is still one of the fastest spreading most costly computer
worms of all time. The virus spreads by collecting email addresses from
infected windows computers and sending itself to victim’s contact list via a
malicious attachment; if the attachment was opened by the receiver the process
would repeat itself indefinitely. The virus quickly roped millions into a
powerful botnet that was capable of a range of denied service attacks. In mid
2004 Mydoom even managed to take
down Google preventing users from
making searches for almost an entire day and other popular search engines at
the time were also affected including Yahoo.
The virus’s creator is/are unknown however it’s widely believed that the person
responsible was paid or forced to do so. In the virus text there is a message
reading “Andy I’m just doing my job
nothing personal sorry”. Why the creator remains anonymous probably has
something to do with the $ 38.5 billion in damages the worm has caused. It’s
not hard to see that he/she wants to stay well hidden. Mydoom once accounted for up to a quarter of all emails being sent
worldwide and still generates around 1% of the total today.
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