Viruses - Malevolent for everyone

What is a computer virus?

In 1949, when computing was just about a decade old, Hungarian-American scientist John von Nuemann theorised the possiblity of writing a self-replicating program, which later came to be known as a computer virus. These programmes,  which need a host to function, are designed to make unauthorised and undesirable modifications in infected computers.
Initially, viruses were designed and tested in university computer labs. The first virus that went 'inthe wild' - outside the lab/computer in which it was designed - was Elk Cloner which was written by Richard Skernta, a school student in the US.Viruses written during the period were spread through floppy disks and hence caused a major security threats.

Source: Learning With The Times

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