One of the biggest global threats and for some a source of considerable income today is computer piracy and hacking. This year marks the 35th anniversary of the time when we can consider the beginning of cybercrime, is the origin of the first virus. At that time, however, it was impossible to talk about criminal activity, as the first virus was created as a protection against piracy.
Behind the official first recorded virus are brothers Basit Farooq Alvi and Amjad Farooq Alvi from Pakistan, who included in their program code capable of recognizing whether it is an original medium (floppy disk). The virus was called Brain. If it was not the original floppy disk, a subroutine was run that slowed down the floppy disk and displayed a message for users to contract with the brothers to help resolve the situation.
However, the virus got out of control as angry people from the USA or Britain started calling them. The beginnings of malware were similar because they were mostly funny or annoying programs that would not match today's devastating Trojans.
At the turn of the eighties and nineties, the phenomenon of viruses appeared, which annoyed users' lives but did not significantly harm them. For example, a virus appeared that opened a window asking for a cookie. The user then had to type the word "biscuit" and the window disappeared for a while. Other viruses played melodies at a given time or randomly.
At the beginning of the 1990s, viruses also began to appear, which we can call unequivocally harmful. These focused directly on file corruption and circulated among users on floppy disks.
How to protect against viruses?
Anti-virus programs are used to protect against viruses, which today are often multifunctional and also work against worms, Trojan horses, and other types of malicious software. There are commercial and freeware antivirus programs, many commercial antiviruses are available to end-users for free or are available for free in a limited version.
On the other hand, unfortunately, many antiviruses cannot effectively prevent attacks from worms and other modern malware. Many antiviruses also significantly slow down your computer, and there are even more problems with the latest Windows. Microsoft has built the kernel of Windows 7 and later in such a way that practically Windows itself prevents the antivirus from functioning properly. Antivirus is not able to scan part of the system, and viruses that exploit bugs in Windows themselves can spread virtually unhindered.
The second unpleasant feature is blocking a lot of advanced programs that, for example, work with online servers and the like. The best defense against viruses is still common sense. If you do not run torrent networks or other shared folders, do not download warez, and do not open suspicious email attachments, the chances of infection with a classic virus are very small. The chances of downloading another type of malware will also be significantly reduced.