Computer viruses can be a nightmare. Some can wipe out the information on a hard drive, tie up traffic on a computer network for hours, turn an innocent machine into a zombie and replicate and send themselves to other computers. If you've never had a machine fall victim to a computer virus, you may wonder what the fuss is about. But the concern is understandable -- according to Consumer Reports, computer viruses helped contribute to $8.5 billion in consumer losses in 2008. Computer viruses are just one kind of online threat, but they're arguably the best known of the bunch.
Computer viruses have been around for many years. In fact, in 1949, a scientist named John von Neumann theorized that a self-replicated program was possible . The computer industry wasn't even a decade old, and already someone had figured out how to throw a monkey wrench into the figurative gears. But it took a few decades before programmers known as hackers began to build computer viruses.
- WORST COMPUTER VIRUS 10: MELISSA
- WORST COMPUTER VIRUS 9: ILOVEYOU
- WORST COMPUTER VIRUS 8: THE KLEZ VIRUS
- WORST COMPUTER VIRUS 7: CODE RED AND CODE RED II
- WORST COMPUTER VIRUS 6: NIMDA
- WORST COMPUTER VIRUS 5: SQL SLAMMER / SAPPHIRE
- WORST COMPUTER VIRUS 4: MYDOOM
- WORST COMPUTER VIRUS 3: SASSER AND NETSKY
- WORST COMPUTER VIRUS 2: LEAP-A
- WORST COMPUTER VIRUS 1: STORM WORM
