Talk:Timeline of notable computer viruses and worms

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Contents

[edit] 1982

Important reference missing: Shoch, J. F.; Hupp, J. A. The "Worm" programs - early experience with a distributed computation (reprint of a 1980 paper). In Milojicic, D.; Douglis, F.; Wheeler, R., editors. Mobility: Processes, Computers and Agents. NY: ACM; 1999; 19-27. niels

[edit] Random Stuff

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is there any independent source verifying Rustock.C in may 2008? Link seems to point to an "this virus is invisible" you can *only* find and remove it by running "this" program. Just doesn't feel right, especially because i noticed absolutely nothing this month about this. b.

--- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.224.83.20 (talk) 13:15, 26 May 2008 (UTC) --User:daprophet

I added Brain, as for some reason, it was completely left out. (Jul 06) ---

what to do with underscores and asterixes...some viruses have underscores in them, but if used on wikipedia they are treated as spaces(obvioulsy) and assterixes wont work properly

Can you give a specific example?
--jtg 08:33, Jan 30, 2004 (UTC)
Underscore: virus_name
Asterisk: virus*name
Paulo Oliveira 08:35, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Did anyone define a policy what viruses should be included in this list? Currently it looks rather arbitrary, with a bunch of viruses the name of which starts with either 1 or T and a few others (which, BTW, do look significant). It looks pretty impossible to list them all (there were 80k+ viruses identified when I last checked)...

--jtg 08:33, Jan 30, 2004 (UTC)

Notable would mean 'significant presence in the wild and/or press attention', I think. This page currently misses almost all the 1990s, it seems, and is substantially incomplete. —Morven 17:17, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I like your definition (mine would be something worth remembering, in practice, mostly "firsts" and "largests" but I guess the two mostly overlap). As for the lack of coverage of the 90's (and late 80's), yes, we're obviously missing much there, such as MacMag, Scores, Tequila, Michelangelo, Concept, Boza, Laroux, Staog, Strange Brew, Back Orifice, Bubbleboy. The reason is simply that this article is still much WIP, it currently contains mostly stuff that is already defined elsewhere in wikipedia, plus stuff that were so noteworthy that I actually remembered them ;) Don't be shy, though, add stuff that you remember, or, for the viruses I mentioned, if you remember them or willing to research into them, please add them to the list, too. Also, for some of the viruses listed it's not clear why they would be considered noteworthy, if you can give a reason, that would be rather useful.
I need to find my old notes and stuff. I worked at an anti-virus firm between about 1994 and 1997 as (among other things) a virus researcher, so I should be able to add some things. —Morven 22:03, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Should the Sober worm be added for 2005? It has been generating a large amount of traffic, and Im pretty sure I have read an article about it breaking some kind of record. —Tomnason1010
The new mywife/e virus should be included. It's received a lot of media attention and has a high distribution according to symantec. I just don't know enough about it to do anything other than a copy/paste from symantec's web site
I have just figured out the virus in the media is the Kama Sutra virus not the mywife.e which disables antivirus software
  • And anyways the mywife.e virus is simply an alias for the Nyxem virus.

[edit] Major construction in progress (Talk:List of computer viruses)

You are welcome to assist me. Use <nowiki> Text </nowiki> to make wikipedia ignore wiki command. -- Cat chi? 03:41, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Most viri in the list have "STUB" like entries, in any case I think we can place a short summery of even lenghty virus entries.

All virus data can be united, Talk:List of computer viruses can be rearranged to be Timeline of notable computer viruses and worms.

[edit] 2002?

Surely there must have been some malware activity in 2002. Any takers? Slark 07:56, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Weren't LFM-026, Shakira, Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, and Bugbear in 2002? 68.13.47.75 16:31, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Possible Ripoff

This page may be a ripoff of a following web site, or this web site may be a ripoff of this page. http://www.answers.com/topic/timeline-of-notable-computer-viruses-and-worms

24.55.108.209 16:51, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Just to reply to the previous comment, I've looked at http://www.answers.com/topic/timeline-of-notable-computer-viruses-and-worms today - 06:27, 16 May 2006 (UTC) - and it states at the bottom of the page (before the advertisements):

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

Also, if you click the wikipedia globe in the horizontal bar directly above the start of the text of the article, it links to a Copyrights: box at the bottom of the page. Hope I've not offended anyone. TheJC TalkContributions 06:27, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Direction

Shouldn't this timeline go from long ago to recent like most sites. That way a reader going through it linearly will be able to understand the progression of worm technology. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jztinfinity (talk • contribs) 21:59, 6 June 2006 (UTC).

I would tend to agree, as most articles on Wikipedia - e.g. 2006 - are in date-order (the word I'm trying to think of has left my mind - I'll come back when I remember it). TheJC TalkContributions 23:05, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
(Edit) Chronological order (earliest to latest) is the word I was thinking of. Looking at the guideline at Wikipedia:Timeline standards (which seems to only be a guideline relating to actual dates/years/decades/etc articles) I think it could be extended to this timeline. Having looked through all the style guidelines and related WikiProjects though, there doesn't seem to be any standard regarding timelines although earliest to latest/more recent appears to be the common approach. TheJC TalkContributions 00:15, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
I went ahead and edited it. Remember, be bold. Too bad the history doesn't recognize moved lines. --BodyTag 20:33, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Brontok

Brontok is a mass-mailing worm that is causing alot of headaches at the moment and has been in the wild (to my knowledge) for several months. As there isn't a Brontok (computer worm) article, I won't add it just yet - although I believe it to be notable as it has charachteristics similar to Sasser and Blaster (as far as I know, one thing it will do is restart a computer if cmd.exe or regedit are opened, but I might be mistaken on that) TheJC TalkContributions 23:12, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] slapper

slapper should be here too

[edit] Added detail for 1970s

Most of the details I added on 1970s and mid1980s come from Kaspersky. Kaspersky seem to have it all well mapped out. There are a lot of details I did not add. Also added PERVADING ANIMAL which is supposedly a trojan.

[edit] notability?

If a virus / worm isn't notable enough to have its own wikipedia article, is it notable to be included in this timeline of notable viruses / worms? TerraFrost 16:46, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chernobyl?

Does anyone have information about the virus that activated itself on the anniversary of the Chernobyl accident? Dominican 02:44, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Who gave it the name 'virus' Len Eidelmen or Len Adleman?

  • Adleman: "[...] and the name 'virus' was thought of by Len Adleman. [...]" [1]
  • Eidelmen only two hits with google and yahoo e.g. [2]

The whole article seems to be a more or less a copy of www.viruslist.com or vice versa (cp. "Possible Ripoff"-section above.). As there are only two hits with google/yahoo for ' "Len Eidelmen" virus '... I think this article is not to very convincing. Any other opinions? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 217.95.126.15 (talk) 20:17, 4 April 2007 (UTC).