Malware profile by Dario Beck and Nikita Sarbaev
| Virus | Worm | Trojan | Ransomware | Botnet | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ✔️ |
- Year: 1982 [1]
- Author: Rich Skrenta [1]
- Language: 6502 Assembler [2]
- Infections: Friends, Teacher, US Navy [3]
- Damage: Unknown/ none - relationship with teacher [2]
Elk Cloner was the first computer virus known to have spread in the wild.
Elk Cloner works with the Apple II with Apple DOS.
[...]
The virus spreads via 5.25 inch floppy disks. When an infected disk is booted, the virus loads into the memory. It monitors disk accesses, and upon finding an uninfected floppy, infect its boot sector.
[...]
Elk Cloner was distributed by Rich Skrenta amongst his friends and teachers reaching the armed forces in the US Navy.
After contagion, every 50th time that a computer booted up, it would display the following text: :
- 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!
[...]
After sending itself out, the virus continues to infect other Word documents. Eventually, these files can end up being mailed to other users as well. This can be potentially disastrous, as a user might inadvertently send out confidential data to outsiders.
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