Antivirus Software - History

History

See also: Timeline of notable computer viruses and worms

Most of the computer viruses written in the early and mid 1980s were limited to self-reproduction and had no specific damage routine built into the code. That changed when more and more programmers became acquainted with virus programming and created viruses that manipulated or even destroyed data on infected computers.

There are competing claims for the innovator of the first antivirus product. Possibly the first publicly documented removal of a computer virus in the wild was performed by Bernd Fix in 1987. There were also two antivirus applications for the Atari ST platform developed in 1987. The first one was G Data and second was UVK 2000.

Fred Cohen, who published one of the first academic papers on computer viruses in 1984, began to develop strategies for antivirus software in 1988 that were picked up and continued by later antivirus software developers. In 1987, he published a demonstration that there is no algorithm that can perfectly detect all possible viruses.

In 1987 the first two heuristic antivirus utilities were released: Flushot Plus by Ross Greenberg and Anti4us by Erwin Lanting.

Also in 1988 a mailing list named VIRUS-L was started on the BITNET/EARN network where new viruses and the possibilities of detecting and eliminating viruses were discussed. Some members of this mailing list like John McAfee or Eugene Kaspersky later founded software companies that developed and sold commercial antivirus software.

Before internet connectivity was widespread, viruses were typically spread by infected floppy disks. Antivirus software came into use, but was updated relatively infrequently. During this time, virus checkers essentially had to check executable files and the boot sectors of floppy disks and hard disks. However, as internet usage became common, viruses began to spread online.

Over the years it has become necessary for antivirus software to check an increasing variety of files, rather than just executables, for several reasons:

• Powerful macros used in word processor applications, such as Microsoft Word, presented a risk. Virus writers could use the macros to write viruses embedded within documents. This meant that computers could now also be at risk from infection by opening documents with hidden attached macros.
• The possibility of embedding executable objects inside otherwise non-executable file formats can make opening those files a risk.
• Later email programs, in particular Microsoft's Outlook Express and Outlook, were vulnerable to viruses embedded in the email body itself. A user's computer could be infected by just opening or previewing a message.

As always-on broadband connections became the norm, and more and more viruses were released, it became essential to update virus checkers more and more frequently. Even then, a new zero-day virus could become widespread before antivirus companies released an update to protect against it.