Of worms and viruses

Created in 1988 by Cornell University student Robert T. Morris,this was among the first worms to wriggle through the Internet. It used existing flaws in Unix sendmail and infected a given computer multiple times,crippling roughly 6,000 computers,a tenth of the computers on the Internet then. Morris wound up with just three years’ probation and a $10,050 fine.

Melissa,1999

Named after a Florida lap dancer,David L. Smith’s Melissa generated large volumes of traffic forcing companies such as Microsoft,Intel Corp. and Alcatel-Lucent to shut down their e-mail gateways. As part of his punishment,Smith spent a few years undercover helping the FBI catch other delinquents in cyberworld.

VBS/Loveletter,2000

Posted from the Philippines,this worm spread worldwide in a single day using address lists on infected computers to send large numbers of messages to new targets. It is thought to have caused a damage of $5.5 billion.

Code Red,2001

The virus left thousands of users red-eyed by infecting computers running on the Microsoft IIS web server. It exploited a buffer overflow to deface websites with the text,“HELLO! Welcome to http://www.worm.com! Hacked By Chinese!” Code Red managed to cause a “major disruption in connectivity”.

Nimda,2001

The virus—Nimda is “admin” spelled backwards—took just 22 minutes to recreate the destruction of Code Red. Nimda created masses of e-mails and lured users to infected websites. It caused damages estimated at $635 million.

MS Blaster,2003

Blaster targeted Microsoft’s windowsupdate.com site and caused multiple restarts in machines running Windows NT,Windows XP (64-bit) and Windows 2003. Victims included the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta,home and corporate users. It was created by 18-year-old Jeffrey Lee Parson.

SQL Slammer,2003

The worm used a buffer-overflow bug to rapidly distribute copies of itself,causing major denials of service around the world and slowing down the entire Internet. Around 200,000 systems were believed to be affected.

MyDoom,2004

This virus spread by appearing to be an error message with an attachment that,when opened,emailed copies of the virus to addresses in the victim’s address book.

Sasser,2004

Sasser spread among Windows XP and Windows 2000 machines by exploiting a buffer overflow. Delta Air Lines Inc had to cancel 40 trans-Atlantic flights and Australian trains had to be halted because operators could not communicate with signalmen.

Witty,2004

This was the first worm to attack network-protection software,especially IBM Internet Security Systems’ products. Witty’s overall effects were relatively small as it stuck to IBM products.

Storm,2007

The worm infected thousands of computers in Europe and the US using an e-mail message with the subject line: “230 dead as storm batters Europe”. By the end of six subsequent waves of the attack,the worm had accounted for 8 per cent of all malware infections globally.

Compiled by Nandagopal Rajan