Continuing our journey of the deadliest viruses in history and reaching the year 1998, we will remember, or even learn about, the Chernobyl virus. Perhaps many of our readers had personal experience with it and remember it better than the rest.
The CIH virus , also known as Chernobyl , or Spacefiller , is a computer virus that ran Microsoft Windows 9x software and first appeared in 1998 .
It is one of the most destructive viruses in history, which replaced critical information with infected code, and most importantly, in most cases it destroyed the system's BIOS.
The virus was created by Chen Ing-HAU, a student at Tatung University in Taiwan. It is estimated that 60 million computers were infected by the virus worldwide, resulting in damages estimated at 1,000,000,000 US dollars.
Chen claimed that he wrote the virus as a challenge to the serious statements made by antivirus software developers at the time. Chen said that after the virus spread beyond Tatung University through his classmates, he apologized to his school and created an antivirus program, which was available to everyone and free of charge. He co-created this antivirus program with Weng Shi-hao, a student at Tamkang University at the time. His legal authorities could not charge Chen at the time, because none of the victims brought formal charges against him. This event led to the creation of new computer crime legislation in Taiwan.
The name "Chernobyl Virus" was coined after the virus was known as CIH, and refers to the exact coincidence of the date of the virus's activation with the Chernobyl accident, which occurred in the Ukrainian SSR on April 26, 1986.
The name "Spacefiller" was introduced because most viruses write their code at the end of the infected file, however, CIH looks for gaps in the existing program code where it writes its code. This does not increase the size of the files and thus helps the virus to avoid detection.
- We already mentioned that the Chernobyl virus often destroyed the computer's BIOS.
But what is the BIOS?
The initials BIOS stand for Basic Input Output System. Its name doesn't say much by itself. Its function is simple: From the moment we press the button to turn on the computer, before Windows starts, the Bios starts running. Its main job is to locate the internal world of the computer. That is, to find the hard drives, the cd-dvd roms we have, the screen, the keyboard, the mouse, and even the various cards (display, network, etc.) that are inside the box or under the keyboard in laptop owners.
After finding all the components of the computer, it sees the settings we have made and decides to give the ball to the hard drive that has the operating system (Windows, Linux, or whatever). In turn, when the disk gets the green light, it starts loading the operating system.
Maybe the job it does seems simple or stupid. It's not. A system without Bios can't do anything. It's the A and Z of the computer.
- In fact, if you open the computer tower you will find a chip:
Bios is a chip and is located in our computer, on the motherboard, usually near the battery. Its internal structure is similar to the USB flash drives that we use for our data. That is, it is a Flash memory and as expected, it can be programmed. This is of course a dangerous sport, since if something goes wrong (e.g. the power goes out during its update) we will most likely have to throw away the motherboard.
- Virus Attacks:
Since it is memory, a virus can get stuck. This is what happened with the “Chernobyl Virus” in 1998, which changed a part of the bios data, making the computer unable to even start. To prevent such attacks, many motherboards today have a second, backup, bios.
- Construction:
The size of this memory is not large. Since 2008, several companies have put larger memories (from 512Mb and above) in which an entire operating system can be placed. As expected, this mini operating system will start in seconds because it does not have to do many calculations.
You can also watch the following video about the virus:
We renew our appointment for tomorrow, Sunday, with the next stop on our journey.
Stay tuned to SecNews!
