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By Joris Evers, 20 January 2006 08:35

NEWS

The first PC virus was discovered 20 years ago this month.

Dubbed Brain.A, the virus got onto computers via floppy disk and infected the boot sector of PCs, according to Finnish antivirus maker F-Secure, which devoted a blog post and news release to the occasion on Thursday.

F-Secure said: "While the virus 'Brain' itself was relatively harmless, it set in motion a long chain of events leading up to today's virus situation."

Brain.A and other "boot sector" viruses are long extinct. The same could be said of the medium used to spread them: the boot sector is typically the first 512 bytes of a hard disk or floppy disk.

Viruses have evolved significantly since Brain.A but boot sector viruses were around from 1986 to 1995, according to F-Secure. Macro viruses arrived next, exploiting early Microsoft Windows operating systems. The advent of email subsequently brought email viruses such as the I Love You and the Anna Kournikova virus.

The first worm surfaced two years after Brain.A, when the Morris Worm hit Unix systems connected to the internet.

Viruses have caused significant pain for computer users. The FBI on Thursday said computer crime cost US businesses $67.2bn over a 12-month period, with viruses and worms the biggest culprits.

Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at F-Secure, said in a statement: "Certainly the most significant change has been the evolution of virus-writing hobbyists into criminally operated gangs bent on financial gain. And this trend is showing no signs of stopping." There are currently more than 150,000 known viruses and the number continues to grow, according to F-Secure.

At the same time, revenue associated with antivirus products reached $3.7bn in 2004, increasing 36 per cent from 2003 to 2004, according to IDC. The research company forecasts the antivirus market will increase to $7.3bn in 2009.

Joris Evers writes for CNET News.com