GridinSoft Releases Free Online File Virus Scanner

Checking a file you’ve just downloaded is essential, especially when you are dealing with less familiar sources. Opening anti-malware software and running an entire scan for a single file is not time-efficient – and this is where online virus scanner service shines. GridinSoft offers its free online virus scanner to everyone – just upload the file in question, and you’ll see the result!

Our online virus scanner supports the use of cloud databases and additional heuristic modules – just like the actual desktop program. This contrasts positively with VirusTotal, where we do not include either cloud DBs and heuristics for technical reasons. Additionally, GridinSoft Online Virus Checker is available in multiple languages – another convenience for everyone.

Though, it is still impossible to implement full-fledged runtime analysis of a file on the web platform. For better protection and the ability to scan the entire system, consider using GridinSoft Anti-Malware.

How to check files for viruses?

Using GridinSoft online virus scanner is pretty easy. All you have to do is follow this link, and then click “Choose file” to open the upload window. Find and click the file you want to scan, and then press “Open”.

In a few seconds, the scanner will return the result. There are 3 possible results — Safe, Malicious and Suspicious.

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They are mostly self-explanatory, but there is a bit of explanation behind the latter. When the scan did not detect any malware signs, but other vendors detect the file, you will see the Suspicious result. That means you should treat the file with special caution.

Below the conclusion about the file, you can find its details. Analysis uncovers the PE structure, certificate signatures, file sections and version info. This may be useful for understanding the origins of the file.

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Send Us Your Feedback

We will be glad to receive your feedback regarding our free online virus scanner. Any new functionality should be tested and adapted to the needs of our users. Share your experience and suggestions through our contact form, or leave it in the comments section under this post. We appreciate any information regarding the Online Virus Checker!

The post GridinSoft Launches Own Online Scanner Service – Meet Online Virus Scanner appeared first on Gridinsoft Blog.

1. Gather Information: Before you report a false positive detection to Gridinsoft, you should gather some important information about the file that was flagged as malware. This includes the name and location of the file, as well as any other relevant details such as the size, date modified, and the software that the file is associated with.
2. Verify the False Positive Detection: It is important to verify that the detection is indeed a false positive before reporting it to Gridinsoft. You can do this by submitting the file to an online malware analysis tool or by scanning it with other antivirus software.
3. Contact Gridinsoft: Once you have confirmed that the detection is a false positive, you can contact Gridinsoft to report the issue. The easiest way to do this is by using their online contact form. In your message, be sure to include the following information:
   • The name of the detected file
   • The name and version of the Gridinsoft software you are using
   • The reason why you believe the detection is a false positive
   • Any other relevant details about the file and your system
4. Provide Supporting Evidence: To help Gridinsoft investigate the issue, you may also want to provide supporting evidence such as a screenshot of the detection or a log file generated by the antivirus software. This will help us to understand the issue better and determine the cause of the false positive detection.
5. Follow Up: After you have reported the false positive detection, it is important to follow up with Gridinsoft to ensure that the issue is resolved. They may ask for additional information or request that you submit the file for further analysis. Be sure to respond promptly to any requests and provide any additional information that may be needed.

In conclusion, if you believe that Gridinsoft has generated a false positive detection, it is important to report the issue to us. By following the steps outlined above, you can help to ensure that legitimate files are not incorrectly flagged as malware and that Gridinsoft remains accurate and effective.

The post How to Report a False Positive Detection? appeared first on Gridinsoft Blog.

But among the simplified solutions, that offer only essential anti-malware functionality, it is also hard to make a decision. We recommend you to use GridinSoft Anti-Malware, and let me give you 15 reasons to choose it.

1. High detection rates

The most important quality of any anti-malware program is its ability to correctly detect and remove the hazards. It can have a bunch of other positives, but the main function is obliged to be as good as possible. And GridinSoft Anti-Malware shows perfect protection against a wide range of threats present in the wild. All kinds of adware, trojan viruses, malicious scripts and questionable programs – they shall not pass the security layer created by GridinSoft Anti-Malware. Such a high level of protection is available thanks to the advanced scanning system and diligent work of malware analysts, who upload the database updates as often as possible.

2. Advanced detection systems

GridinSoft Anti-Malware manages 3 different detection mechanisms – the “classic” database-backed detection, heuristic engine and neural network. The former does not need any introduction, since it is the alpha and omega of all antiviruses. But let’s have a closer look at heuristic and neural detection mechanisms.

3. High resource efficiency

PC performance is an object of concern of the vast majority of users. Installing any software that is about to run in the background means risking to have significant decrease of the PC speed. GridinSoft developers paid additional attention to that aspect, in order to make their program as resource-efficient as possible, even having your proactive features on. You will barely feel the impact of this program running in the background – it takes almost less than 1% of CPU power and ~300 MB RAM. Compared to things like Windows Defender, which consumes 5-10% of CPU and up to 1GB RAM, it is literally nothing.

4. Simple interface

Have you ever struggled with a huge number of tabs in the programs? Some of the antiviruses, especially ones that have a lot of unnecessary functions, have this problem. But GridinSoft Anti-Malware is the other story – it offers a clear interface with all important functions and information available at the glance. Functions and settings are logically divided on categories, corresponding to their purpose, and the detailed info (scan logs or update changelogs) is available in just several clicks.

5. Full-time support

Having problems on your PC? Think something is broken inside of your operating system? Struggle to make a decision in our program? Support specialists will help you to solve any case, at any moment of time. GridinSoft Anti-Malware licence features the 24/7 multilingual tech support, so you will definitely receive the proper answer. For tough cases, the manager can offer extended support – via the remote connection. Such an approach will definitely help you to solve the issue.

6. High compatibility

Even in 2022, people still use old operating systems for certain reasons. Some people don’t want to update because of the hardware requirements, some dislike the new appearance of the OS, and some users don’t want to lose the compatibility with the programs they use. GridinSoft Anti-Malware will perfectly fit all of these categories, offering the support for a wide range of Windows versions. It will successfully run on Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8/8.1, 10 and 11 – a timeline of more than 20 years of software development. And on any of these versions the security tool from GridinSoft will show an excellent efficiency.

Moreover, GridinSoft Anti-Malware also works perfectly with other antimalware and antivirus software. For people who want to have several security solutions running together, it will be a perfect addition. You will never see any detection conflicts, and the modest resource consumption will not interfere with the other programs’ efficiency.

7. Setup flexibility

Despite the easy-to-use interface, GridinSoft Anti-Malware offers a wide range of settings that will fit different users. Scanning schedule, use of heuristic rules during scans, ability to adjust the startup settings, and manage the active modules of the proactive protection – that will be enough to personalise the experience as much as possible. GridinSoft Anti-Malware is designed with an idea to give the users the right to choose the program mode it wants.

8. Reasonable price

Most of the antivirus solutions contain a huge amount of functions, which are about to be paid for regardless of the fact you use them or not. When it comes to GridinSoft Anti-Malware, you pay only for the functions you will definitely use – exactly, the genuine anti-malware software features. For an annual licence, you have to pay only $40 – or less, if you will use a discount that is available multiple times a year. You will not find the same functionality & efficiency combination for this money.

9. Nothing excessive

In the previous paragraph, we mentioned the services and features available in GridinSoft Anti-Malware. It does not feature keychain, additional traffic controlling or VPN service. In the developers’ opinion, users can decide if they want to use one, and must not obligatory pay for them. On the other hand, you receive a full bunch of various features that are really needed for the anti-malware software – a full-featured proactive protection, quarantine, and various tools for system recovery. Isn’t that a fair swap?

10. Constant database updates

The efficiency of anti-malware programs is measured by their detection quality. That is, exactly, the most important part of the program – low detection capabilities make it just a useless app. But even the most advanced detection databases & mechanisms are getting outdated with time, and their detection rates fall inexorably. New malware appears each day, and to retain the effectiveness, you should update the databases as often as possible. GridinSoft Anti-Malware receives database updates each hour, so even the most fresh malware will be taken into account pretty quickly.

11. Trial and Demo mode

Any purchase must be rated correspondingly, after weighting all pros and cons for yourself. That’s why trial mode in GridinSoft Anti-Malware makes it possible for you to test it from all aspects. 6 days of full functionality within the trial licence is enough to feel all qualities of this program, get familiar with the interface and have some real-world testing.

But even in the situation when you did not purchase the licence, you are still able to scan your device for threats in Demo mode. It is able to detect the malware, but cannot remove it, and lacks proactive protection features. This mode provides the testing capabilities as well – but can’t show you the real potential of GridinSoft Anti-Malware.

12. System applications repairing capabilities

Modern malware pretty often exploits the operating system vulnerabilities in order to conduct its activities. When it is removed, the touched system elements remain damaged, and it is very important to fix them. Contrary to the third party apps, that may be changed as well, modified system elements may cause errors and even system failure. GridinSoft Anti-Malware is able to effectively find and repair the system elements that were damaged by malware, saving you from manual recovery.

13. Browser reset functions

Nasty malware types that show us advertisements of different forms, like adware and browser hijackers, generally act through modifying your browser settings. They invade each web browser you have on your device, to show you the ads wherever you go. Even after removing viruses from your PC, your browsers will keep the changes made by malware. GridinSoft Anti-Malware has the ability to revert these changes in all browsers in a single click – thanks to the Reset Browser Settings function. A single click – and your browser is as good as new.

14. Multi-layer on-run protection

On-run protection, also known as proactive protection, is a very useful feature that controls the application activity on your computer. Each launch of the application and each opened folder are monitored by the anti-malware program. GridinSoft Anti-Malware checks-up processes and directories with a three-part system – databases, heuristics and neural network. Using all three systems makes it impossible to miss the malware – it will definitely be detected and defused, even if it was not active at the moment.

The On-Run Protection function in GridinSoft Anti-Malware can have two additional functions. Besides the basic scanning of all activities, it also can act as a network monitor, and removable devices scanner. The former will be very effective in blocking the unwanted websites, that may expose your PC to a hazard. Removable Device scanning is a function that checks all of the connected storage devices, both removable drives or USB flash drives. That will safeguard your computer from the intrusion from most of the typical malware spreading vectors.

15. Quarantine

Sometimes, neither the program nor the user is sure that the detected file is dangerous. To give the time gap and chance to choose, GridinSoft Anti-Malware features threat quarantine. That is, exactly, the separated area on the disk, where the blocked files are stored until the decision is made, or the 30-day term is expired. Items in Quarantine are impossible to launch and interact with the rest of the system, so even dangerous stuff does not put your system into a hazard.

Try out GridinSoft Anti-Malware

You have seen a lot of arguments that prove the efficiency and convenience of GridinSoft Anti-Malware. This security tool has great functionality for a reasonable price. The features this program has make it really superior to its contemporaries. Having a try of this application for 6 days will surely dot all the i’s. And the support managers will be glad to answer any of the questions regarding the program functionality.

The post 15 Reasons to Choose GridinSoft Anti-Malware appeared first on Gridinsoft Blog.

*Before understanding how to avoid and neutralize, you need to understand how to decrypt ransomware and what it is.

Why Ransomware Protection Matters?

The problem of ransomware protection is pretty hot since more than a dozen ransomware groups target different categories of users. Each has different spreading ways, disguises, and toughness. Some of the ransomware¹ attacks may be decrypted due to the recklessness of its developers, some have design flaws that make the cipher decryptable with the simple brute force.

RECOMMENDATION: You can try the best ransomware protection tool – Gridinsoft Anti-malware. This anti-ransomware tool detects, removes, and prevents ransomware.

To avoid such reactions, we will show you how to protect yourself when you are an individual user and in the corporation, bearing on typical tricks they use. Moreover, we’ll also explain the working steps of protecting against ransomware.

Is Protect Against Ransomware Your PC Important?

First, let me explain why ransomware attack is such a bad omen. It is not only about making your data inaccessible. Several other malware types prevent the users from accessing the files. However, they did not get any significant spreading. Things like screen lockers, archiving, and shortcutting malware ceased to exist – not just because of a bad accident. That is why it is vital to find a good and working ransomware attack protection solution.

Ransomware (at least most) uses a tough cipher that makes it almost impossible to get your data back. Even if you use a modern quantum computer, you’ll probably spend several thousand years decrypting this cipher.

NOTE: The list of dangerous ransomware includes: avaddon ransomware², STOP/Djvu ransomware, lockBit ransomware³, makop⁴, etc.

But it is still not the only disaster – some ransomware samples carry spyware attacks together with their main payload and collect all credentials it can reach. Unfortunately, nobody (despite crooks on their own) can delete the stolen credentials. That is why it is important to find working solutions for best ransomware protection software to be armed.

At, file recovery after a ransomware attack is complicated if you are not going to pay the ransom. Modern ransomware variants can disable Volume Shadow Copies, OneDrive backups, and other popular backup methods. Crooks often scare the victims that any attempt at file recovery will lead to data loss.

They may also say that your data will be deleted if the ransom payment demand is unmet. While the first thing is partially true, the second is a complete lie – to scare you and force you to pay the ransom. However, dealing with the consequences of an attack is never a pleasant case. Let’s figure out how to prevent ransomware attacks.

You can explore some working tips to protect yourself from ransomware in the picture above.

Tips to Prevent Ransomware Attacks

The advice on how to stay secure depends on your environment. Crooks will apply different approaches to attack the individual user or company employee. Even when you are working from home on your personal computer, you will be attacked differently when crooks aim at your PC and the whole company.

1. Don’t use dubious/untrustworthy sources of software, films and other risky stuff. Around 90% of ransomware cases are accounted for by the use of third-party sites to get the program or film they want without paying a penny.
2. Remember – the only thing for free is a piece of cheese in a mouse trap. Major players of the ransomware market, such as STOP/Djvu, even create their one-day sites that mimic the forums with hacked software or pages with new films to download for free. Torrent trackings that are spread through these sites contain a payload that executes as soon as the downloading is over.
3. Don’t open email attachments from unknown senders. Crooks will try to mask their email addresses to look legitimate, but an attentive look at them will show you the truth.
4. If you are not sure if the email from Amazon you’ve received is a real one, don’t be lazy to check the list of real Amazon support/delivery email addresses. And don’t be naive – no one will offer you to get a prize for a lottery you never took part in.
5. Be careful with software you’ve found on the forums or social networks. Not all of them are dangerous, and not all of the dangerous ones carry ransomware. But still, using such programs is like buying drinks in a dirty doorway.
6. You never know if it is good or counterfeit, but you definitely know who to blame for your heavy hangover the next day. This spreading way is rare but must not be crossed out, especially considering the high trust in such apps.

Tips to Prevent Ransomware Injection in Corporation

These tips will be useful for both administrators and employees who have to deal with potential attack surfaces. Generally, attacks on companies are committed with specific methods and ones that repeat the attack vectors on individuals. Thus, you may see the things that are common in both situations.

• Use the protected RDP connection. RDP brute force attacks are one of the most widespread attack vectors. They are used to deploy ransomware, spyware, advanced persistent threats, and only God knows what else.
• Controlling this moment is essential; it will be ideal if system administrators will set all RDPs by their own – to prevent any wrong moves. Brute forcing the RDP connection is available only when the ports used to establish the connection are not secure. Unfortunately, these ports are used by default, so inexperienced users who set up the RDP for the first time will likely choose them
• Cluster the internal corporate network. Most companies have all the computers connected to a single local network inside a single office. Such a step eases the management but makes it much easier to infect. When there are 4-5 pieces, each of them controlled by a separate administrator PC, and only then – by the domain controller, hackers will likely fail to make it through.

Sure, one segment of this network will likely be down, but all others will be OK, and your office will not be idle, having any ability to use the computers.

The picture above shows tips and ransomware prevention best practices that can help.

• Apply the 2FA for logging into all vulnerable places. To extend their presence in the infected network, attackers try to steal credentials or brute force all places that may be used to spread the malware in the network. Their final target is the domain controller – the computer which handles the whole network and has access to the servers. Its protection must be as high as possible.
• Initiate regular password changes among the personnel. Some known attacks happened after the password leak from one of the networks. Besides that, advanced attacks may last for several months – and suddenly changed passwords will confuse their cards.
  So changing the passwords on the internal accounts is about to happen each 4-6 weeks. It may look like it too often, but believe me – that’s worth it.

As a post scriptum, I want to recommend avoiding some common passwords – “qwerty,” “12345”, or something like that. The success of brute forcing particularly bears upon such easy passwords. Even the cheapest (or free) password databases for brute forcing contain them. Use strong passwords so that they cannot be cracked – this is one of the main the key to success.

* PLEASE NOTE: Another widespread mistake is adding some personal information to the passwords. Your or your spouse’s birth date, the name of your pet, and the date you joined the company are all effortless to figure out with open-source intelligence. Keep that in mind when creating such an important thing!

Show the employees how to distinguish the counterfeited email. While individuals rarely fall victim to email scams, companies are the primary targets of such an event.

*Cybercriminals are not lazy to create some ingenious disguise for their emails. They may mimic the requests to your tech support, offers from other companies, notifications about the bills the company needs to pay, and so on. There is nothing dangerous in seeing the exact message, but any links in it and attached files expose you to potential danger.

It is better to avoid interacting with them at all, but if it may inflate your working process, check the sender’s address meticulously. Companies’ officials never text you from personal email addresses and never contact you.

*I WANT TO REMIND: it is essential to choose the best ransomware protection solution for yourself to protect yourself and your PC. After studying the necessary materials and research, you protect your PC from adware, spyware, ransomware, and other threats.

The best anti-ransomware protection is possible when you have constant database updates and, more importantly, proper proactive protection. These two things will already give you a pretty high protection ratio.
Nonetheless, the problems of most of the mass-market antiviruses don’t disappear: they still may overload your CPU/RAM, as well as scatter your privacy by sending a lot of telemetrics.

That’s why I’d recommend you the one that does not have both of those disadvantages – Gridinsoft Anti-Malware. Its databases are updated every hour, and the overall CPU and RAM consumption is low enough to fit even the weakest systems.

Proactive protection, based simultaneously on heuristic engine and neural network, will make your device much more protected from most of the malware types.

The post The Best Ransomware Protection – Steps to Help appeared first on Gridinsoft Blog.

VirusTotal is a free online service provided by Google, which analyzes suspicious files, helps businesses and users quickly and accurately detect viruses, worms, trojans, and all other kinds of malicious software.

Pursuing the goal of helping users to solve PC hygiene problems, Gridinsoft is constantly striving to employ the achievements of Machine Learning and Big Data Analytics to detect the invasion more effectively. As a partner of VirusTotal, through Gridinsoft’s integration of tools in the array of malware analysis Scanner, Irina hopes Gridinsoft will interact with the cybersecurity community to restrict ransomware, malware, and all other forms of cyberattacks, creating a safer digital environment for non-savvy-tech users.

Previously, Gridinsoft has developed tools for checking PCs for third-party intrusions and disable them. Thousands of companies and millions of users worldwide confirm the effectiveness of our software in this field. For years we have been ensuring the high quality of threat recognition by OPSWAT certificates.

The post Gridinsoft becomes Google’s information security partner appeared first on Gridinsoft Blog.

>There are a lot of reasons to reset your browser. Generally, they have malicious origins. Most of the malware infects not only your system but also your browser. Nasty redirects, slow performance of search process, ads, replaced homepage and search engine – these are consequences of annoying browser virus.

Moreover, such browser hijacker possesses a real threat to your privacy. GridinSoft Team found lots of cases when an unwanted search engine collects the search history and personal information of the victim and uses them in own purpose. Not each anti-malware program can offer the online security feature, which prevents data collection. But GridinSoft Anti-Malware does.

We also recommend resetting your browser settings regularly if you use a lot of browser plugins. Plugins have a bad habit of conflicting with each other, and the more ones you have in your browser – the higher is the chance to have problems. No one wants to see the web browser slow and buggy, right?

How to reset my browser settings?

The most efficient way is to reset browser settings automatically. GridinSoft Anti-Malware offers a free tool that will make your browsers clean with just one click.
In order to reset these settings back to the normal mode, please click the “Tools” menu tab and then select the “Reset Browser Settings” option.

Choose browsers that you want to reset and items that need to be back to default mode. Click “Reset. That’s all!

Browsers that you chose will be closed after resetting.

Please, save all your important data before cleaning. All bookmarks will stay no matter which items you will choose to reset.

The post How To Reset Browser Settings? appeared first on Gridinsoft Blog.

In order to provide you with the most complete and qualified help, we need detailed information about your computer, the programs that are installed and the previous scan results.

We have compiled a set of Tools that will help you easily collect the information you need to get qualified help as quickly as possible:

Collect system information. Gathers all needed information about the state of your PC. We need it to analyze the actual vulnerability status of your computer. It helps to understand why some threats weren’t found or weren’t deleted, because some of them can appear on your computer not as separate files, but as running tasks and processes.

Log files. There are three types in the program, each collects information about specific parts of work:

1. Application Log. Gathers data about actions of the program, fixates information about possible problems when the program performs starting, scanning or other tasks.



2. Protection Log is a detailed log about results of work of three real-time protection systems. If you have any suspicion of conflict in the work with other programs, while Internet Security and On-Run Protection are turned on, we see it in Protection Log.



3. Scan Log contains a detailed report of scan results: the scan time, its type, which objects were scanned, and what threats were detected.

To send us system information for analysis, go to the Tools tab, and select Collect system information. After this information will be generated. Save it on your computer by selecting Save … and send it to us for detailed analysis.

To send us a log file – go to the Tools tab and select the desired report type (Scan Log, Protection Log or Application Log) – check the specific log(s) and send it to us for analysis.

Also in the program settings, you can choose after how many days software stores log files. If this menu item is not checked, the log files won’t be deleted from your computer, which will very helpful in finding the cause of the problem, if it occurs.

The post How To Send System Information For Analysis appeared first on Gridinsoft Blog.

If your choice is “Move to quarantine,” Files and Registry Items will appear here in Quarantine List. Items will be stored here during the time specified in your settings.

Usually, we recommend moving files to quarantine. It’s easy to reach the Quarantine list using the Tools Tab.

Quarantine List shows all quarantined items that were detected and quarantined (applying the “Move to quarantine” action after scanning). You can look for a specific item in the search string or filter items by date.

“Move to quarantine” action is equal to the “Delete” action at first sight, but it stores all threats for 1 to 30 days and gives you the ability to restore them.

Users may restore a certain file if they consider files were quarantined by mistake. If so, you must check a specific item and press the “Restore” button. In this case, only the checked item will be restored.

After that, you will need to confirm this action in the pop-up window to ensure you restore only files of your interest and you understand that they can be harmful to your PC.

Sometimes, you are pretty sure that the file is safe and was detected without any reason – in this case, please, report the false-positive detection to us via customer ticket support system (by creating a new ticket). Our analysts will consult you if there’re any doubts about a specific file.

You can remove all files from the Quarantine List if you are sure you don’t need these files anymore. Anyway, they will be removed automatically when the time comes (do you still remember the settings mentioned above?).

The post How To Restore Quarantined Files? appeared first on Gridinsoft Blog.

GridinSoft Anti-Malware is a powerful and reliable antivirus solution that provides real-time protection against all types of malware, including viruses, trojans, spyware, and adware. With its advanced technology, GridinSoft Anti-Malware can detect and remove even the most sophisticated malware, ensuring that your computer is always protected.

This Halloween, we are offering an enormous 70% discount on GridinSoft Anti-Malware. It’s the perfect time to take advantage of this deal and protect your computer from potential threats. Don’t let viruses trick you; get the ultimate protection with GridinSoft Anti-Malware.

Our team is committed to providing the best protection for your computer. We understand that malware is constantly evolving, and we work tirelessly to ensure that our software is always up-to-date with the latest threats. With GridinSoft Anti-Malware, you can rest assured that your computer is always protected.

So, what are you waiting for? Treat yourself this Halloween with 70% off on GridinSoft Anti-Malware. Don’t miss out on this spooktacular deal, and protect your computer from potential threats. Our gift to you is a safe and secure computing experience, so take advantage of this offer today!

The post Get 70% off on GridinSoft Anti-Malware this Halloween appeared first on Gridinsoft Blog.

• CIH, 1998

  This virus was created by a student from Taiwan whose initials were CIH. It had spread across the network on April 26 – the date of the Chernobyl accident, so many users call it simply – Chernobyl. This virus is dangerous because it not only overwrites data on the host PC’s hard drive, making it unusable, but it is also capable of overwriting the BIOS of the host. After this, the PC can’t boot up. For the time being, CHI or Chernobyl has infected nearly half a million PCs worldwide.

• Morris worm (1998)

  The first ‘Worm’ virus. It gained a huge amount of attention via the press, and the creator was the first person convicted in the USA under Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. November 1998 was the month when one virus paralyzed the entire Internet’s work, resulting in direct and indirect losses totaling $96 million. It crashed a lot of PCs because of a minor mistake in its’ code – it continued installing on one PC an unlimited number of times, causing the total death of the system.

• Melissa (1999)

  On Friday, March 26, 1999, a new problem appeared– Melissa. It’s an email-based virus. You received an e-mail that contained just one sentence, “Here is that document you asked for…don’t show anyone else. ;-),” with an attached Word document. Nowadays, we understand that it is a virus, but in 1999, it was something new. Those who opened the DOC file (thousands did so) allowed the virus to infect their system and send this e-mail to all the contacts in your e-mail account using your name. Even worse, this virus modified users’ Word documents with quotes from the TV show “The Simpsons. The cybercriminal responsible was caught and sentenced to twenty months’ imprisonment.

• ILOVEYOU (2000)

  The most romantic one on our list of dangerous viruses is the ILOVEYOU virus. Maybe because of its lovely name or insidious strategy, it infected 45 million users for two days! The CHI virus would have taken about two years. So how did it work? A person receives an e-mail with a ” LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU ” file with a VBS extension (Visual Basics script). When entered into the system, it would replace all your files, images, and music and then spread itself to all your contacts. The damage was enormous – no one had expected this type of virus. And do you know what? The creator was found but wasn’t charged for this crime because the Philippines had no laws against cyber criminals then.

• Code Red (2001)

  July 13, 2001 – The day when another virus infected the Web. This time, you didn’t need to install a malicious file or even open the e-mail. Code Red or Bady virus just needed an Internet connection that changed the Web page you opened by displaying the text “Hacked by Chinese!”. It spread quickly, and it took less than a week to infect almost 400 000 servers and nearly one million damaged computers.

• MyDoom (2004)

  My Doom appeared in the malware world on January 26, 2004. Not for days, but for hours it infected nearly 2 million PCs! So how did it work? It came as an attachment to an e-mail with an error message containing the text “Mail Transaction Failed.” When you clicked on the attachment, it duplicated this e-mail to all addresses found in your address books. To stop this invasion was tough because the virus blocked access to the sites of antivirus software developers and Microsoft update services.

• Sasser (2004)

  This virus impressed the world because it managed to shut down the satellite communications for French news agencies and even led to the cancellation of several Delta airline flights. Impressive, isn’t it? Instead of e-mail, this virus used a security flaw in non-updated Windows 2000 and Windows XP systems to break into the system. Once the virus infected a computer, it looked for other vulnerable systems. Infected systems were experiencing repeated crashes and instability. Interestingly, this virus was written by a student who released the virus on his 18th birthday. He was fortunate because he wrote the code when he was a minor, so he just got a suspended sentence.

• Bagle (2004)

  At the beginning of 2004 new virus appeared – The Bagle worm. It has a classic method of infection – via e-mails. Why have we put it on the list? Because this virus is the first one created to make a profit by gaining access to financial, personal, and other information. Since then, a malware-for-profit movement has appeared and is currently a huge problem for many users and antivirus companies.

• Conficker (2008)

  Worm Win32 Conficker or just Conficker is a very insidious virus written to attack the Microsoft Windows systems. Using OS vulnerabilities, “Conficker” slipped unnoticed by antivirus programs, and even worse, it blocked access to their databases and updates for the OS. The names of all services were substituted, and the virus was registering in different parts of the system, so it was almost impossible to find and destroy all its fragments. There were more than 12 million infected computers worldwide, and it taught antivirus companies and OS providers a harsh lesson to improve their security.

• Stuxnet

  Last but not least was the worm called Stuxnet. It was discovered in 2010, and you’ve probably already heard about it. It targeted industrial control systems that monitor and control large-scale industrial facilities, including power plants, dams, waste processing systems, and chemical and nuclear operations. It allows the hackers to take control of every important system control without being noticed. This is the first-ever attack that allows cybercriminals to manipulate real-world equipment and bring huge damage to world security. Iran has suffered the most damaging effects of Stuxnet (nearly 60 percent of all the damage caused)..

So, as we can see, it took less than 20 years to develop viruses from the commonplace spam e-mail to a massive threat to the world. What will be next? Will antivirus programs be capable of protecting us in the future? And what about world peace? There are a lot of questions, and there are no definite answers. Leave a comment below. What do you think awaits us in the future of viral progression?

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