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What is malware?
Malware is shorthand for ‘malicious software’. It is software developed by cyber attackers with the intention of gaining access or causing damage to a computer or network, often while the victim remains oblivious to the fact there’s been a compromise. A common alternative description of malware is ‘computer virus’ – although are big differences between these types malicious programs.
What was the first computer virus?
The origins of the first computer virus is hotly debated: for some, the first instance of a computer virus – software which move from host to host without the input from an active user – was Creeper, which first appeared in the early 1970s, ten years before the actual term ‘computer virus’ was coined by American computer scientist Professor Leonard M. Adleman.
SEE: Special report: Cybersecurity in an IoT and mobile world (free PDF)
Creeper ran on the Tenex operating system used throughout ARPANET — the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network — and jumped from one system to another, displaying a message of “I’M THE CREEPER : CATCH ME IF YOU CAN’ on infected machines, before transferring itself to another machine. For the most part, when it found a new machine, it removed itself from the previous computer, meaning it wasn’t capable of spreading to multiple computers at once.
While Creeper wasn’t created for malicious purposes or performing any activity beyond causing mild annoyance, it was arguably the first example of software operating in this way.
Shortly afterwards, a new form of software was created to operate in a similar way – but with the aim of removing Creeper. It was called Reaper.
Alternatively, some believe the title of the first computer virus should go to one called Brain, because unlike Creeper it could self-replicate itself without the need to remove itself from a previous system first – something which many forms of malicious code now do.
The Morris Worm
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