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Malware History.Pdf Malware History Malware History Table of Contents Malware History ................................................................................................................................................ 1 Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................................. 1 Table of Figures ................................................................................................................................................. 4 Revision History ................................................................................................................................................. 4 Disclaimer .......................................................................................................................................................... 5 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................................... 6 What Malware Really Is ................................................................................................................................. 6 Spreading Malware – A Business that Brings Billions.................................................................................... 6 Types of Malware .............................................................................................................................................. 7 1. Viruses ................................................................................................................................................... 7 2. Worms and Mass-Mailers ..................................................................................................................... 7 3. Trojan Horses ......................................................................................................................................... 8 4. Backdoors ............................................................................................................................................ 11 5. Exploits ................................................................................................................................................ 11 6. Rootkits ................................................................................................................................................ 12 7. Spyware ............................................................................................................................................... 12 8. Adware ................................................................................................................................................ 13 9. Phishing ............................................................................................................................................... 13 Malware History .............................................................................................................................................. 14 Pre-History: From Innocent Pranks to Widespread Infections ................................................................... 14 Duality: The Anti-Virus Virus ....................................................................................................................... 15 The Seventies: Computer Games That Spell Disaster ................................................................................. 15 The Eighties: Experimenting with Malice .................................................................................................... 17 Worms Start Biting from the Apple ......................................................................................................... 17 Vienna: Actively Fighting Malware Threats ............................................................................................. 19 Security Experts Start Looking for the Antidote ...................................................................................... 21 The NSA versus Morris: $100 Million in Damage .................................................................................... 23 The Nineties: Malware Creators Start Building Communities .................................................................... 27 From Michelangelo to Self-Mutating Engine .......................................................................................... 30 New Removable Media gives Malware a Boost ...................................................................................... 33 2 The contents of this document is © 2008-2010 BitDefender. All Rights Reserved! 2 Malware History The Modern Ages: Y2K and the Digital Apocalypse .................................................................................... 43 2001: the Year of the Worm .................................................................................................................... 47 2003 - Sobig and the Botnet .................................................................................................................... 50 2004 – Google Draws the Curtains .......................................................................................................... 51 2005 – The Sony BMG Scandal ................................................................................................................ 52 2006 – MacOS X Rides On the Trojan Horse ........................................................................................... 53 2007 – Malware Takes the World by Storm ............................................................................................ 55 2008 – The Emergence of Rogue Antivirus Software .............................................................................. 55 2009 – The Downadup Invasion .............................................................................................................. 61 2010 – New Security Risks Lurking: Ransomware and P2P Worms ........................................................ 63 Future Outlook ................................................................................................................................................ 67 Appendix .......................................................................................................................................................... 69 How to Tell if You Got Infected? ................................................................................................................. 69 Additional reading ........................................................................................................................................... 71 3 The contents of this document is © 2008-2010 BitDefender. All Rights Reserved! 3 Malware History Table of Figures The Virus Making Laboratory was an extremely popular utility that allowed newbie malware creators to spawn new viruses without having to write any code. ........................................................................................................................ 32 Virus generating applications gain popularity among less skillful malware developers. ................................................. 36 The Koobface CAPTHCA breaker ....................................................................................................................................... 58 Rogue AV trying to scare users into purchasing a "license" ............................................................................................. 59 Win32.Xorer.EK - a virus that prepends its body to the host application ......................................................................... 64 Error message thrown before the MBR destruction ......................................................................................................... 65 The Elk Cloner virus would display a poem as part of its payload. ................................................................................... 17 The Cascade virus forced text to be displayed on the bottom side of the window, simulating a waterfall. ..................... 20 the Denzuko.A virus would display its logo when users would attempt to perform an Alt+Ctrl+Del reboot. ................... 23 On each September 22nd, the Frodo virus would display the "FRODO LIVES" message in caps ........................................ 26 Initially designed as a remote access tool, the BackOrifice utility was mostly use by hackers to seize control over victims’ computers. ........................................................................................................................................................... 39 Melissa was one of the fastest-spreading mail worms ever ............................................................................................. 40 The Netbus 2 Pro utility was able to infect even NT-based operating systems. ............................................................... 41 The Kakworm exploited the same IE security loophole as the Bubbleboy VBS script. ...................................................... 42 The LoveLetter worm took advantage of users’ curiosity in order to infect hosts and spread to other computers. ........ 44 Sircam would infect .doc and .xls files, and then it would send them as attachments to miscellaneous addresses. ....... 48 In order to prevent users from unwillingly running malicious attachments, many e-mail clients block potentially unsafe attachments.....................................................................................................................................................................
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