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by Nicholas Aaron Khoo, Singapore

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Top Web threats in the history of the Internet

Sep 4, 2009 14:15

This week is the 40th anniversary of the Internet. To mark this important milestone, this geek found it really interesting that Symantec took a look back at some of the most notorious threats ever seen online. I don't know about you, but personally, I thank God (and my antivirus) that I've not been seriously affected by any of these before.

1. I Love You (2000): Who wouldn't open an email with "I Love You" in the subject line? Well, that was the problem. By May 2000, 50 million infections of this worm had been reported. The Pentagon, the CIA, and the British Parliament all had to shut down their email systems in order to purge the threat.

2. Conficker (2009): The Conficker worm has created a secure, worldwide infrastructure for cybercrime. The worm allows its creators to remotely install software on infected machines. What will that software do? We don't know. Most likely the worm will be used to create a botnet that will be rented out to criminals who want to send spam, steal IDs and direct users to online scams and phishing sites.

3. Melissa (1999): Melissa was an exotic dancer and David L. Smith was obsessed with her and also with writing viruses. The virus he named after Melissa and released to the world on March 26, 1999, kicked off a period of high-profile threats that rocked the Internet between 1999 and 2005.

4. Slammer (2003): This fast-moving worm managed to temporarily bring much of the Internet to its knees in January of 2003. The threat was so aggressive that it was mistaken by some countries to be an organized attack against them.

5. Nimda (2001): A mass-mailing worm that uses multiple methods to spread itself, within 22 minutes, Nimda became the Internet's most widespread worm. The name of the virus came from the reversed spelling of "admin".

6. Code Red (2001): Web sites affected by the Code Red worm were defaced by the phrase "Hacked By Chinese!" At its peak, the number of infected hosts reached 359,000.

7. Blaster (2003): Blaster is a worm that triggered a payload which launched a denial-of-service attack against windowsupdate.com, which included the message, "billy gates why do you make this possible? Stop making money and fix your software!!"

8. Sasser (2004): This nasty worm spread by exploiting a vulnerable network port, meaning it could spread without user intervention. Sasser wreaked havoc on everything from The British Coast Guard to Delta Airlines which had to cancel some flights after its computers became infected.

9. Storm (2007): Poor Microsoft, always the popular target. Like Blaster and others before, this worm's payload performed a denial-of-service attack on www.microsoft.com. During Symantec's tests, an infected machine was observed sending a burst of almost 1,800 emails in a 5-minute period.

10. Morris (1988): An oldie but a goodie. Without Morris, the current threat "superstars" wouldn't exist. The Morris worm (or Internet worm) was created with innocent intentions. Robert Morris claimed he wrote the worm in an effort to gauge the size of the Internet. Unfortunately, the worm contained an error that caused it to infect computers multiple times, creating a denial of service.

Well, looks like most of them are after the year 2000, which means the threats will only continue to increase. So remember to keep yourself protected!

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Sepanta

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Sepanta says...
A Perfect List Of Threats . I Was Very Lucky To This Time That My Computer Never Affected By This Virus , Vorms & ... . Just Take Care Of Ur Machine By A Comlete
Anti Virus & Anti Spyware.

Sep 05, 2009 01:08

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Geekonomics

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Geekonomics says...
It was compiled by Symantec, I found it interesting too.

Sep 05, 2009 07:18

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About Nicholas Aaron Khoo

Nicknamed "Gadget Boy" by friends at age 18 because he used to scribble Grafitti on a PalmPilot faster than most would type, Nicholas Aaron Khoo is web developer turned technopreneur and Singapore tech blogger who also pretends to do strategic advisory for tech startups and 'un'Fortune 500s (when he's not pretending to be the gadget-loaded Batman). A digital nomad, his tech interests range from gadgets, games, tech trends, social media, security, and just about anything that runs on 1s and 0s. See his industry affiliations here.
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