The first computer virus was harmless
Recommended for Middle Grades
A computer virus is a type of code or programme written to change the way a computer operates. It is designed to cause harm and spreads from one computer to another.
A mathematician from Hungary named John Neumann was the first person who came up with the theory of computer viruses in 1966 and designed one. However, he never knew it as a “virus” by name. His design was non-functioning and harmless. But it was never actually created.
His ideas were finally put into reality in 1971. A man named Bob Thomas created the world’s first virus – the Creeper. By today’s standards, it is categorized as a “worm”.
Bob was working at a company where his job was to demonstrate the code of the mobile applications. The application was for mechanically hopping between different computers on a network.
On receiving this virus, the computer showed “I’M THE CREEPER: CATCH ME IF YOU CAN”. However, the Creeper virus didn’t cause any harm. Instead, it simply scanned the computer. Moreover, if there was another system in the network, it would move to and hop over that.
The discovery of antivirus
Later, Bob’s colleague Ray Tomlinson introduced another virus known as “The Reaper”. The virus’ only purpose was to find any system infected by the Creeper. After that, they could delete Creeper from the system. This way, Ray Tomlinson was the first to introduce antivirus.
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