World's First Computer Virus

Ever wonders what would be the world's first computer virus.

The Creeper virus was the first virus detected on ARPANET, the forerunner of the Internet. Creeper was a self-replicating program written by Bob Thomas at BBN Technologies in 1971. Creeper gained access via the ARPANET and copied itself to the remote system and displays the message, "I'm the creeper, catch me if you can!".

In 1982, a program called "Elk Cloner" was the first personal computer virus. It is Written in 1981 by Richard Skrenta, a ninth-grader at Mount Lebanon High School near Pittsburgh This virus was spread via floppy disk.

The first IBM PC virus was a boot sector virus dubbed Brain created in 1986 by the Farooq Alvi Brothers in Lahore, Pakistan, reportedly to deter unauthorized copying of the software they had written.

The first virus that targeted Microsoft Windows is WinVir discovered in April 1992. This virus relies on DOS interrupts.


source credit: Wikipedia