"Elk Cloner" - The first Computer Virus
2007-09-25
It began 25 years ago as a ninth-grade prank, a way to trick already-suspicious friends who had fallen for his earlier practical jokes.It earned Rich Skrenta notoriety as the first person ever to let loose a personal-computer virus.
Over the next 25 years, Skrenta started the online news business Topix.net, helped launch a collaborative Web directory now owned by Time Warner Inc.'s Netscape, and wrote countless other computer programs. But he is still remembered most for unleashing the "Elk Cloner" virus on the world.
"It was some dumb little practical joke," Skrenta, now 40, said in an interview. "I guess if you had to pick between being known for this and not being known for anything, I'd rather be known for this. But it's an odd placeholder for (all that) I've done."
"Elk Cloner" - self-replicating like all other viruses - bears little resemblance to the malicious programs of today. Yet in retrospect, it was a harbinger of all the security headaches that would only grow as more people got computers - and connected them with one another over the Internet.
Skrenta's friends were already distrusting him because, in swapping computer games and other software as part of piracy circles common at the time, Skrenta often altered the floppy disks he gave out to launch taunting on-screen messages. Many friends simply started refusing disks from him.
So in a winter break from Mt. Lebanon Senior High School near Pittsburgh, Skrenta hacked away on his Apple II computer - the dominant personal computer then - and figured out how to get the code to launch those messages onto disks automatically.
The prank, though annoying to victims, is relatively harmless compared with the viruses of today. Every 50th time someone booted an infected disk, a poem he wrote would appear, saying in part, "It will get on all your disks; it will infiltrate your chips."
Skrenta started circulating the virus in early 1982 among friends at his school and at a local computer club. Years later, he would continue to hear stories of other victims, including a sailor in the first Gulf War nearly a decade later. (Why that sailor was still using an Apple II, Skrenta does not know.)
Major viruses
•Elk Cloner, 1982: Regarded as the first virus to hit personal computers worldwide, "Elk Cloner" spread through Apple II floppy disks.
- Brain, 1986: "Brain" is the first virus to hit computers running a Microsoft Corp. operating system - DOS. Written by two Pakistani brothers, the virus left the phone number of their computer repair shop.
- Morris, 1988: Written by a Cornell University graduate student whose father was then a top government computer-security expert, the virus infected an estimated 6,000 university and military computers connected over the Internet.
- Melissa, 1999: "Melissa" was one of the first to spread over e-mail.
- Love Bug, 2000: Also spread by e-mail attachment, "Love Bug" tricked recipients by disguising itself as a love letter.
- Code Red, 2001: Exploiting a flaw in Microsoft software, "Code Red" was among the first "network worms" to spread rapidly because it required only a network connection.
- Blaster, 2003: "Blaster" also took advantage of a flaw in Microsoft software and prompted Microsoft to offer cash rewards to people who help authorities capture and prosecute the virus writers.
- Sasser, 2004: "Sasser" exploited a Microsoft flaw as well and prompted some computers to continually crash and reboot.
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