Phil Higgins, a senior partner with Brookcourt Solutions, warned that the viruses of today are long away from the ‘almost benign malware’ of 1982.
He said, “Back then it was just a prank. A bit of fun. Today’s malware is frequently malevolent and coded by criminals and/or hackers who are intent on extracting money from – as well as destroying the data of – innocent computer users and the organisations they work for.
“An example of this is the MPack tool kit which is being used by criminals to infect legitimate websites and then deliver a crime ware payload to unsuspecting visitors. Reports indicate that MPack is being used by cyber criminals to control tens of thousands of websites and infect hundreds of thousands of corporate and individual users.”
The first virus, the ‘Elk Cloner’, actually dates back to July 1982 and is thought to have been invented by a high school student from Pittsburgh.
Higgins said, “It’s always nice to remember an anniversary, but this is one date that both business and personal computer users should use to galvanise themselves into raising the bar on their information security and ensuring that any malware doesn’t get through their security screens”.