Note: This article was published in 2014. Software versions, prices, settings, apps and services mentioned may have changed or been discontinued since then — please check current information before relying on it.
Today, many of us take online security seriously, but there was once a time when our attitude to staying safe on the web was a little more lax. Over a decade ago, when many people were still getting to grips with the internet, a handful of enterprising cyber criminals were able to take advantage by creating a series of massive viruses which were as expensive as they were widespread.
As displayed in the following infographic, the biggest viruses to date were during the early part of the last decade. This was when awareness of viruses was starting to grow, but many weren’t stopped in their tracks before thousands, if not millions of computers became compromised. After their full extent was revealed, the most eye-popping thing about them was the financial costs.
Five Most Catastrophic Viruses of All Time Infographic
The damage caused amounted to billions of dollars, as it made many computers unusable without extensive repair. The same could be said for many websites affected by these viruses. Today, viruses still cause multiple problems, infecting machines through malicious advertising or booby-trapped web pages and email attachments. Fortunately, awareness has grown, but the problems persist.
Meridith
Feb 12. 2014
I was living just south of D.C. in 2001, and I remember hearing about the Code Red virus. It’s scary how fast those viruses can spread. I like how you explained how each virus worked and how they spread, but how did people fix/protect against them?
Deepak
Feb 17. 2014
Hi,
Computer security is has become real big issue. You just can’t go without antivirus. I liked your video and how you explained the whole virus and antivirus battle.
Connor
Feb 18. 2014
very interesting and informative article, makes me interested to see what these viruses would do on a modern computer.
shanzey
Feb 24. 2014
I liked your video and how you explained the whole virus and antivirus battle.thanks for it
Sumit
Apr 26. 2014
awesome video…..nicely explained…..thnks……
Tech Crates
May 29. 2014
Thanks guys, very appreciated 🙂
Darragh
Jun 26. 2014
Thanks for your Infographic. There is another danger now: while Microsoft phased out Windows XP maintenance in April, in a few days, a two-digit percentage of computers still run XP. That problem is aggravated by the ‘silver platter’ service of new exploits that inadvertently are communicated by Microsoft when security updates for later Windows versions pertain to security issues that apply equally to XP. These then need only be reengineered to be used against the unprotected, unupdated XP. And 95% of ATMs run XP which is just a farce, this being one of the economically most vulnerable embedded software applications. Let’s hope they erroneously spew out the money we need to fix XP computers …