Short answers, pulled from the story.
Farooq Alvi and his brother created the Brain virus in 1986 while operating from a small office in Lahore, Pakistan. They intended to protect their medical billing software from being copied but inadvertently started the modern era of cyber warfare.
The Morris Worm spread across the internet in 1988 when Robert Morris, a graduate student at Cornell University, released a standalone program that exploited security holes in Unix systems. The code caused it to replicate uncontrollably and infected 10% of the 60,000 computers connected to the network.
Crypto ransomware encrypts files securely to prevent users from accessing their data, while locker ransomware simply locks down the system without encrypting the contents. Programs like CryptoLocker and WannaCry are examples of crypto ransomware that have become household names.
By 2017, the number of malware variants had exploded to nearly 670 million, a figure that doubled from the previous year. This explosion signaled that the quiet invasion of the 1980s had evolved into a roaring storm of digital chaos.
Approximately 83% of malware infections between January and March 2020 were spread via systems running Windows 10. This figure highlights the danger of relying on a single operating system for the majority of computers.
In 2025, Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit identified Lumma Stealer as the favored info-stealing malware used by hundreds of cyber threat actors. This malware enables criminals to empty bank accounts, hold schools for ransom, and disrupt critical services.