Security & Privacy

This year, some computer users may want to celebrate a peculiar anniversary: the computer virus is 25 years old. While viruses have become everyday occurrences, it’s easy to ignore that the first computer virus that got into the wild is as old, in computer years, as Methusalah.

It was called Elk Cloner, and it was the work of a 15-year old high school student named Rick Skrenta. He developed a boot sector virus – the kind that hides in parts of a disk that contain no actual files – that he circulated via floppy disks in his school and a local computer club. While we are more familiar with the vast number of viruses that target Windows computers, it is interesting to note that this first virus affected only Apple II computers.

Fortunately, this virus did no harm, but rather displayed a “poem”:

Elk Cloner: The program with a personality
It will get on all your disks

It will infiltrate your chips

Yes it’s Cloner!
It will stick to you like glue

It will modify RAM too
Send in the Cloner!

When Skrenta was asked about this virus in 2007, he said it was “some dumb little practical joke.”

For more on the history of computer viruses, you can check out this CNet article that looks at the evolution in self-replicating computer code, from the first worm (1975) to the more recent plague of computer viruses, and this Wikipedia timeline of computer viruses. And while you’re at it, make sure to keep your copy of Intego VirusBarrier X4 up to date to make sure your Mac won’t get infected.