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November 10: The First Computer Virus

lawrencebush
November 10, 2011

fcohenA PhD student at the University of Southern California, Fred Cohen, demonstrated the workings of the world’s first documented computer virus on this date in 1983. In his paper, Cohen defined the virus he had created as “a program that can ‘infect’ other programs by modifying them to include a . . . version of itself.” His was added to a graphics program called “VD” (no pun intended). Cohen credits the use of the term “virus” to an associate, Len Adleman.

“It was expected that the attack would be successful, but the very short takeover times were quite surprising. In addition, the virus was fast enough (under 1/2 second) that the delay to infected programs went unnoticed.” —Fred Cohen