One of the worse problems Windows users encounter is in the form of viruses. Despite having up-to-date antiviruses, these viruses circumvent the security features before causing havoc on the computer. In addition to the inability of certain antivirus software to detect these Trojans, the fact that some of these viruses have the ability to pose themselves as “Microsoft developed Software” is more troublesome.
Thanks to an ancient cryptographic procedure that was used in abundance in the Windows server, antivirus manufacturers are now exploiting it to show that their program is Microsoft certified. Even though Microsoft has released an advisory to eradicate this security void, we think that it is in the best interest of the Windows users if they know these viruses by name.
Here are 5 Worst Computer Viruses You Might Not have known:
2007 Storm Worm
If you have ever received an email with the subject line of “230 dead as storm batters Europe”, brace yourself as this was your real-life encounter with the Storm worm. In fact, these emails arrived with an attachment and those of us who opened the attachment risked our computers being affected.
Even though the worms are nothing new for the Security experts, the Storm worm caused a lot of nuisance. One of the main reasons for its meteoric rise was because they spread meekly, without making any sort of noise. Also, after your computer gets infected, it won’t show any symptoms until months.
Thus, if you want to check whether your system has developed an affinity with this virus or not, I would recommend you to go for Soft2Secure blog. In addition to decrypting the files that are installed on your computer, it will also help to remove the virus.
Melissa
Although you might not believe it, this virus is named after a Miami stripper. The fame of that stripper was so effective that even the likes of Microsoft and Intel were affected. That was due to an upsurge in emails that were generated by this server, which ultimately affected the servers of Intel and Microsoft.
One of the many reasons this virus drew worldwide attention was its ability to spread. Send via an email with an attached document labeled List DOC, a simple click on the attachment sent it to the first 50 contacts according to the address book of the user.
Although this virus has now been vanquished – thanks to the efforts of Antivirus developers, it caused a lot of nuisance to the general Computer User at its heyday.
Sasser and Netsky
This software got so much attention that Microsoft put a $250,000 bounty for information about its creator. Although its manufacturers – an 18-year-old German, were eventually turned in, this virus had gained worldwide popularity before that.
In addition to the computer users and Microsoft, this virus also caused a lot of nuisance to the competing viruses. Thanks to the innovation of its author, this virus contained a code that removed all the other viruses from the computer. Therefore, it is safe to say that its popularity among other virus authors wasn’t that great.
My Doom
According to Wikipedia, this virus became the fastest spreading software at its heyday in 2004. Like the aforementioned viruses, this virus used the Email platform for its rise.
When you are sending an email, this virus might appear in the form of a “Mail Delivery Error”. Although the three words that I used are specific, this virus contains simple phrases i.e. “Error” or “Mail Transaction Failed”.
This Message was sent in English, French and German Languages. As a result, it is safe to say that the impact of this virus was global.
Pardon me but this virus knew its limitations and avoid challenging them. Servers at MIT, Stanford, and Microsoft were avoided by this virus because it didn’t watch to catch the attention.
The Anna Kournikova Virus
Being the brainchild of the Dutch Programmer Jan de Wit, this virus first surfaced on the Online World in October 2001. Looking at the transmission mechanism of this virus and it seems poignant to see that this virus took full use of our colorful imagination.
In the context of the Email, the user was tricked to open a message by stating that it contained a picture of the beautiful Anna Kournikova.
One thing that differentiated this virus from its competitors is the user base. While most of the aforementioned viruses targeted Yahoo! Mail, this virus exploited the mail contacts of Microsoft Outlook.
Turning our attention back to the contents of the Spam Email that contained this virus and the subject line read: “Hi, Check This!”. Although this might not appear too catchy a subject line, the attachment drew the attention of the user as it contained what seemed to be a picture with the label “AnnaKournilova.jpg.VBS”
If you think that I’ve missed some viruses, please share your thoughts in the comment section.
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