14/03/2018
Most Famous Computer Viruses of All Time
1. CryptoLocker
When it comes to malware, ransomware is the new kid on the block. While most people can rattle off names like ‘Trojan’, ‘viruses’, and ‘spyware’, they’re often not too familiar with ransomware.
2. ILOVEYOU
While ILOVEYOU sounds like a cheerful bon mot you might find printed on the inside of a Valentine’s Day card, it’s actually far, far more sinister than that. ILOVEYOU is one of the most well-known and destructive viruses of all time.
3. MyDoom
MyDoom is considered to be the most damaging virus ever released—and with a name like MyDoom would you expect anything less?
4. Storm Worm
Storm Worm was a particularly vicious virus that made the rounds in 2006 with a subject line of ‘230 dead as storm batters Europe’. Intrigued, people would open the email and click on a link to the news story and that’s when the problems started.
5. Sasser & Netsky
17-year-old Sven Jaschan created Sasser & Netsky, two worms, in the early noughties. Sasser & Netsky are actually two separate worms, but they’re often grouped together because the similarities in the code led experts to believe they were created by the same person.
6. Anna Kournikova
What’s a tennis player got to do with a list of interesting viruses? Quite a lot, as it so happens.
7. Slammer
While most of the malware on this list strictly hit computers, Slammer was created with broader ambitions. Slammer is the kind of virus that makes it into films, as only a few minutes after infecting its first victim, it was doubling itself every few seconds.
8. Stuxnet
Stuxnet is easily the scariest virus on the list as it was built by government engineers in the US with the intention of obstructing nukes from being built in Iran.