The computer virus turns 25

I recently attended a luncheon celebrating the 25th anniversary of security vendor Symantec, so perhaps it's apropos that this year is also the anniversary of the creation of the first computer virus. One wonders if Symantec be what it is today, or if companies like McAfee or Trend Micro even be around, were it not for a high school kid from Pittsburgh named Richard Skrenta.

In 1982 he created “Elk Cloner” which is credited with being the first computer virus to spread outside the single computer or lab it was created in. Somewhat ironically given Apple's reputation for high security today, the first computer virus attached itself to the Apple DOS 3.0 OS and was spread via floppy disk.