History Main / ComputerVirus

* Floppy disc-transmitted viruses used to be a major feature on the computing landscape, before [[TechnologyMarchesOn technology marched on]] and they were replaced by malware that leveraged the Autorun feature for [[PlugAndPlayTechnology plug-n-play]] software in optical discs and USB flash drives. One of the most notable and infamous viruses that spread in this way was the legendary Friday the 13th Virus, also known as the Jeruselam Virus.

* The trolls in ''{{Homestuck}}'' contain two people who use viruses - Sollux, a hacker who creates really effective viruses, and Karkat, a script kiddie who calls himself a programmer but who gets Sollux to do all the hard work for him. The troll story starts when Karkat [[TooDumbToLive runs a ridiculously dangerous virus created by Sollux on his own computer in a fit of blind pique]], blowing it up and putting a {{Curse}} on himself, all his friends, and everyone he will ever meet.

* [[HomestarRunner Strong Bad]] receives a virus email in "Virus" which looks like text gibberish. Strong Bad then runs his virus scanner to find that he in fact has over 400,000 viruses on his computer, enough to cause the rest of the Homestar universe to glitch until Bubs [[spoiler: shoots the computer with a shotgun.]]

* The BigBad of ''Series/PowerRangersRPM'' is a ''self-aware'' computer virus. Within three years of its release onto the internet it had ''nuked the planet'', presumably by getting access to [[EverythingIsOnline military computers]].

* In ''TheNet'', the main character is a computer programmer who collects the viruses that she combats. In one of the opening scenes, she's fixed a virus that was afflicting ''VideoGame/{{Wolfenstein 3D}}''.

* In ''[[Film/TheMatrix The Matrix Trilogy]]'', the BigBad Agent Smith goes from being a program created to police the Matrix to being able to copy himself over other programs and even people after being killed by Neo at the end of the first movie. It's ironic considering his "humans are a virus" rant to Morpheus earlier in the same film.
* In the film ''{{Film/Hackers}}'', there's a virus named Da Vinci that threatens to sink an oil tanker fleet that drives much of the plot. Near the end, hackers around the world barrage a mainframe with such viruses as "Cookie Monster", which is defeated by typing in "cookie".

* In ''TheNet'', the main character is a computer programmer who collects the viruses that she combats. In one of the opening scenes, she's fixed a virus that was afflicting ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}''.

* The BigBad of ''Series/SuperhumanSamuraiSyberSquad'' is a malevolent AI named ''[=Kilokhan=]'' who creates the computer viruses for the MonsterOfTheWeek.

* The BigBad of ''Series/SuperhumanSamuraiSyberSquad'' is a computer virus named ''[=Kilo Khan=]''

* The BigBad of ''Series/SuperhumanSamuraiSyber-Squad'' is a computer virus named ''[=Kilo Khan=]''

Just to clear things up: Computer viruses exploit security holes/vulnerabilities specific to certain programs -- preferrably server programs, so you can do a remote attack. In order to discover and exploit such holes you need to study the software in question -- a pretty difficult thing to do if you don't have the source code, access to a copy of the target system allowing you to run a selection of penetration testing tools against it (doing so on the real target may well alert its owners that some dirty work is afoot), or at the very least access to the executable file. More commonly, a virus author waits until a security update by the software developer uncovers a security hole in the program. If you are fast, you can act then and write a virus. Most users are lazy with updates (or company policies might get in the way), allowing the virus to spread to versions of the program missing the security update. But in order to write a virus, even if you know the security hole, you need advanced knowledge about programming. That's something you only possess if you're studying computer science or are a complete geek/nerd that has taught himself/herself programming at the age of six. Writing and testing a virus so it works the way you want and doesn't get detected prematurely might take a ''bit'' longer than an overnight hacking session. (Well, there are exceptionally skilled long trained hackers who might indeed be able to do this.) In any case you definitely need the following things in order to complete this task:

* Floppy disc-transmitted viruses used to be a major feature on the computing landscape, before [[TechnologyMarchesOn technology marched on]] and they were replaced by malware that leveraged the Autorun feature for [[PlugAndPlayTechnology plug-n-play]] software in optical discs and USB flash drives.

* Personified with Megabyte of ''WesternAnimation/ReBoot''.

* ''AdventureTime'' episode "A Glitch is a Glitch" has Ice King upload a virus to the Universal Source Code of Ooo, deleting everything so that he and Princess Bubblegum are the last two people in the universe. The virus looks like a glitchy Ice King head with cursor arrows for eyebrows, and it physically eats bits of code. Finn and Jake defeat it by [[spoiler: grossing it out and causing it to throw up the code.]]

[[quoteright:350:[[Webcomic/{{Gunshow}} http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/virus_5609.PNG]]]]

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* ''AdventureTime'' episode "A Glitch is a Glitch" has Ice King upload a virus to the Universal Source Code of Ooo, deleting everything so that he and Princess Bubblegum are the last two people in the universe. The virus looks like a glitchy Ice King head with cursor arrows for eyebrows, and it physically eats bits of code. Finn and Jake defeat it by [[spoiler: grossing it out and causing it to throw up the code.]]

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-> '''Grif:''' I find viruses that feature a laughing skull work the best.

* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet Stuxnet] - a worm supposedly developed to hamper and/or ruin Iran's nuclear facilities. Essentially, [[OhCrap a weaponized computer virus]]. Thankfully, its highly specialized nature made it harmless to most other kinds of computers...but [[OhCrap that hasn't stopped more well-rounded descendants like "Flame" and "Duqu" from popping up]].

* The {{Troll}}s in ''{{Homestuck}}'' contain two people who use viruses - Sollux, a hacker who creates really effective viruses, and Karkat, a script kiddie who calls himself a programmer but who gets Sollux to do all the hard work for him. The troll story starts when Karkat [[TooDumbToLive runs a ridiculously dangerous virus created by Sollux on his own computer in a fit of blind pique]], blowing it up and putting a {{Curse}} on himself, all his friends, and everyone he will ever meet.

* The BigBad of ''PowerRangersRPM'' is a ''self-aware'' computer virus. Within three years of its release onto the internet it had ''nuked the planet'', presumably by getting access to [[EverythingIsOnline military computers]].

* In the ''Series/{{Stargate SG-1}}'' episode ''Avenger 2.0'', Jay Felger and Major Carter write a computer virus that disables a DHD by scrambling its symbols and corresponding coordinates. While it is not clear whether these two studied computer science, all other work they do just concerns physics. Although Major Carter did write the dialing program which imitates a DHD for the (American) Earth gate, so it's not the first programming she has done along those lines.

* The way the Cylons disabled the Colonial Fleet in BattlestarGalacticaReimagined was often described as a Virus, though in reality it was a backdoor that the Cylons placed during the development of a navigation program that most Colonial ships (military and civilian) used.