Old viruses never die, they

[Dimandja]

Whatever happened to all the bad bad viruses that appeared in the 10 years? Did they retire, or are they all still lurking out there?

If these old viruses were so devastating, why don't we hear about them anymore at all; did they get wiped out?

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[sleipnir214]

Although few if any of them get spread around any more, I suspect that they're still out there, preserved for posterity on backup tapes and floppy disks.

Most of the antivirus vendors, to the best of my knowledge, never remove a virus definition from their software on the odd chance that one of the old ones will pop up again.


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TANSTAAFL!!

 

[MasterRacker]

This is a good question. As sleipnir said, there are plenty of copies around on old media and backups. Since they are old, any decent AV program will stop them, however there is still a dissappointing number of machines running without protection. Why don't we hear of unprotected machines getting hit with an old "classic" and passing it on to other unprotected machines?

[purple]Jeff
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[sleipnir214]

As I see it, it is most likely because of[ul][li]the differences between how and what "old" and "new" virii infect[/li][li]what we most commonly store on those backups[/li][li]who is doing the restore[/li][/ul]

Most modern virii make use of scripting languages and are transported along with data. The old virii often were assembly-language code that wedged itself into executable files.

Most backups, to my experience, are of data, not executables. The "old" virii get left behind, wedged into non-backed-up executables on old systems.

Those who restore data from old backup systems are likely corporate entities, who are likely to have antivirus in place.



I think the comparison of computer virii to biological virii is a good one. The virus authors are the mutation engines that retrovirii have built into their replication mechanisms. The antivirus vendors are the immune system, trying to keep the virii from infecting.

There is in epidemiology the concept of a natural reservoir for diseases. Rubella, for example, has no reservoir in nature but mankind. Other diseases, such as influenza, have as reservoirs other animals.

It may be that with changes in operating systems and productivity software, the natural reservoir for an old virus is evaporating.

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TANSTAAFL!!

 

[lionelhill]

At least some viruses lose their hosts. The old DOS viruses tended to be very system-near things, intercepting interrupts and so on. Think how often a Win 3.1 program, written with compatibility in mind, no longer runs in WinXP (think for that matter how often a WinNT application that you were promised would remain compatible for ever falls down completely in WinXP; even a change of service pack can bring applications to a grinding stand-still).

Surely a good few viruses out there simply wouldn't act as intended nowadays (a very good thing, too).

 

[Diancecht]

I bet for lionel point.

Most viruses attacks vulnerabilities of wide used software, specially Windows SO and its most common applications like Outlook, Internet Explorer and so on.

With new software versions, patches and updates, those viruses lose their way to infect he machine, so even unprotected computers are out of their scope.

Cheers,

Dian