For the past few months, Heartbleed created quite a scare all over the net that made the World Wide Web go round in circles for quite a while. At first, computer viruses would pose a potential threat to the computer and its data as it may potentially shut a system down. As years pass however, the threat and danger it possess worsens as it begins to breach the personal data and information of private individuals once it infects your computer system. Up until now, there are quite a number of people who find themselves in peril because of this virus and other similar malware, but looking back, you would be surprised that there are actually quite a number of computer threats that posed a higher risk to computer users—at least during such time.
SQL Slammer – SQL Slammer or Sapphire is one of the most feared computer worm in 2003, rapidly infecting 75,000 computers in just 10 minutes. This virus generally causes denial of service on Internet hosts and slowed down the Internet traffic at the time it spread. The malware was first noticed and brought to public attention by Michael Bacarella at that time, and was eventually named by the CTO of ISS< Christopher Rouland as SQL Slammer Worm. It has a number of aliases, including W32/SQLSlammer, Sapphire Worm, Helkern, W32.SQLExp.Worm, SQUL_HEL, and DDOS.SQLP1434.A.
MyDoom – MyDoom was first discovered in 2004 and is known as a computer worm sent as an e-mail spam that triggers a DDoS or Distributed Denial of Service Attack. The email worm would be sent to the email, containing a message that reads “andy; I’m just doing my job, nothing personal, sorry”. Other names for this email worm are Shimgapi, W32.MyDoom@mm, Mimail.R, and Novarg.
Sasser and Netsky – The Sasser and Netsky worms are computer viruses created by then 17 year old German student in 2004. They are known to be exploits that affects vulnerable versions of Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows XP although it was eventually found that the exploitation may be easily stopped by properly configuring a firewall and constantly conducting Microsoft Windows Update systems update. Its effects, compared to other worms and malware was broader and worse, as it was able to block satellite communications of the news agency Agence France-Presse for hours, and disrupted the flight schedule of Delta Airlines among others. It also disrupted Hospital operations that affected emergency patients.
Leap-A/Oompa-A – This Trojan horse malware was found in 2006 by Intego and was known for specifically targeting Mack OS X Operating Systems. Although it cannot spread over the internet, this malware can spread through LAN or Local Area Network and infect other computers within reach through the Bonjour Protocol. Although it does not spy the system, delete data or take control of the computer operations, the worm, once it infects the computer, will not launch the application it infected. The best and most practical solution for this bug is easy and obvious however; delete the worm infested files (and the worm while you are at it) and replace them with fresh copies. What makes it easy to remove compared to other worms is that it could not affect the operating system itself and just attacks the applications.
Storm Worm – Considered one of the worst viruses ever known since year 2000, Storm Worm has indeed caused havoc in the computer world since 2007. In just 3 days, it was deemed to be responsible for 8% of the computer malware infections all over the world. It has infected computers in United States and Europe in just one day with an email message with a subject that states “230 dead as storm batters Europe”. It eventually evolved into other email versions with different subjects. It’s propagation is so fast, as studies show that an infected machine can immediately infect 1,800 other emails in just five minutes. It would apparently cause a breach into your system and steal some of your data and private information. Up to present, this deadly virus continues to mutate into different versions.