5 Computer Viruses That Are Pretty Cool If They’re on Someone Else’s Computer
Computer viruses aren’t quite as rampant as they used to be, thanks to overall better cybersecurity. But if you were around for the early days of the internet, you remember how quickly and easily your entire PC could become an unusable hunk of silicon and plastic. All you were trying to do was download Linkin Park songs off LimeWire, and suddenly, your dad is asking you why the family computer is now a dedicated porn-site pop-up machine.
Obviously, if it’s your computer that’s been commandeered, you’re not going to be in a position to think about how cool that nefarious creation actually is, but from afar, some computer viruses can be pretty cool.
Wabbit
Pixabay
Wabbit is one of the first types of malware ever created. If the name is evoking images of Elmer Fudd, that’s absolutely on purpose. The virus is, indeed, named for the fuzzy creature that is Elmer’s prime target. It’s also undeniably wascally, endlessly replicating itself just like the famously procreative animal in question, and dominating your system's resources as a result. As a kid, this meant that if you wanted to play your daily dose of Snood, you couldn’t because 100 percent of your computing power was now dedicated to duplicating wabbits.
CryptoLocker
Pixabay
Encryption is a valuable method of cybersecurity that can protect your files from prying eyes and bad actors. Of course, for it to be useful, you have to be able to decrypt those same files. The same way putting your valuables in a safe is a good idea, but before you close the door, you should make sure you know the combination. CryptoLocker is a trojan horse virus that, once running, immediately gets to work encrypting all of your precious files, but doesn’t provide you with a decryption key. That belongs to the creator of the virus, and they’d be happy to provide you with it — for a price.
To make matters worse, this ransom sometimes comes with a countdown until CryptoLocker will fully delete the files in question. The most nefarious bit of all, though, is that even if you get rid of the virus, the files will still be encrypted, leading to some people purposely reinstalling the purged virus just so they can pay up and regain access.
Stuxnet
Pixabay
Stuxnet was, at least in theory, a worldwide danger. That’s because it wasn’t discovered evilly humming away in a desktop PC somewhere. No, the virtual habitat Stuxnet popped up in was the computer system of the Natanz uranium enrichment plant in Iran. Stuxnet manipulated valves within the facility's centrifuges to intentionally damage them. For a year, in a facility that doesn’t really have much margin for error, this continued.
Before you blame lax security for Stuxnet’s success, the Iranians had taken serious measures to stop viruses from affecting the systems in question by “airgapping” them, a term that refers to a system intentionally removed from any outside network. And so, anything going on or off the system has to be installed via physical media. Something Stuxnet had thought of, as it was designed to spread first over the internet, but then was capable of infecting flash drives used by Stuxnet-compromised computers.
Terrifying? Yes. Cool? Also yes.
The Anna Kournikova Virus
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We’ll jump from a virus with worldwide military impact to one where the ill effects weren’t anything much more than personal embarrassment. It shares its name with the professional tennis player and popular celebrity crush of the time, Anna Kournikova, because it spread via an almost unquenchable occurrence: human horniness.
You would receive an email from what seemed like a friend titled “Here you have, ;O),” with the message, “Hi: Check This!” and a file named “AnnaKournikova.jpg.vbs.” If you had interest in seeing a picture of Anna Kournikova, and didn’t know or notice the .vbs filetype, meaning a Visual Basic Script, you’d rub your hands together and click away, hoping to be rewarded with something saucy. Instead, you’d be infected with the virus, which, funnily enough, didn’t do anything malicious — outside of emailing everyone in your Outlook contacts list the same message from you, letting them know your system had been compromised by your thirst for a hot Russian tennis player.
The Creeper
Warner Bros
We’ll end at the beginning, with what’s considered to be the first computer virus ever created. Like the Wabbit, its name also has an entertaining cartoon origin, being called “The Creeper” in honor of the iconic Scooby-Doo antagonist. It’s older than the modern internet, as it was unleashed on its predecessor, ARPANET.
ARPANET was mostly used by research scientists to communicate data, and later, the Creeper virus. Given that the Pentagon was on said network, it’s probably for the best that Creeper was, like the Anna Kournikova virus, a virus with no ill intent besides spreading itself, created as a security test. How did you know you’d been caught by the virtual Creeper? A simple message would pop up on your screen: “I'm the creeper, catch me if you can!”
Now that’s just fun.