As businesses increasingly rely on technology and online services, cybersecurity is a core concern for any IT service provider, and businesses will do everything possible to ensure their vital business data is kept as safe as possible
Whilst the first antivirus software, Reaper, was created in 1971, not long after the creation of Creeper, typically considered to be the first computer virus ever, it would take another 15 years for the concept of IT security to enter the minds of many computer users.
Whilst not the first malicious virus, Brain was the first virus to spread widely on DOS, the earliest precursor to modern Windows computer systems. Created by brothers Basit and Amjad Alvi with the help of a Dungeon BBS programming forum, it was intended to be copy protection for a heart monitoring tool they sold.
They even supplied their home address and telephone numbers, offering “inoculation”, which would have taken the form of a code signature that stopped the attack but were alarmed to receive calls from all over the world.
At the same time, a somewhat unmotivated computer genius working for The Lockheed Corporation by the name of John McAfee had learned about the Brain virus and realised very quickly that he had the capability to write a tool to get rid of it.
Initially, he would go to each company in a van inspired by the film Ghostbusters and search for “virus residue” before installing his antivirus tool and fixing the systems.
This initial approach would lead to Mr McAfee forming the company McAfee Associates and releasing the very first piece of commercial antivirus software, McAfee VirusScan, in 1987.
From there he became one of the biggest and most public advocates for cybersecurity in the 1980s and early 1990s, which included a number of somewhat infamous interviews talking about the potential danger of a virus called Michaelangelo in 1992.
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