A computer malware caused $50 billion in damages.

In the early days of the internet and computers, reading a suspicious-looking email might bring down a whole network, costing billions of dollars in some cases! In this narrative we'll look into Mydoom, the deadliest computer malware of all time! You should think twice about preserving your hardware ☠💰💻🖥📡💰☠

January 26, 2004 the sun is rising over the U.S. east coast at 8 a.m. Eastern time. Millions of commuters travel daily from New York to Florida to work, where they sit down to check their emails and begin the day's business in the United States. Despite the fact that every person's inbox is different, a select few thousand employees can't help but notice a distinctive email among the usual spam, office rumors, or greetings from a relative. A failed delivery notification may be included in some emails, while others may simply say, "Hey" or "Click me, baby, one more time," a humorous homage to Britney Spears' 1998 megahit pop song. Most people are suspicious of emails from unfamiliar email addresses and assume they are spam.

However, only a small number of recipients actually open the email. Among them, a number of people actually clicked the attached link. The most expensive computer virus in history can be released with just that. The virus immediately scans the address books of the select few dupes who actually opened the attached file before installing itself on their computers. Then, over a short period of time, the virus emails itself to each and every contact in the user's address book. This causes a fresh wave of emails to become infected, but this time they originate from email addresses that hundreds of people are already familiar with and feel safe using. These hundreds immediately infected their own computers by opening the malicious emails they received from a reliable source.

Again, the virus searches through their address books and emails itself to each contact. In just one hour, a single infected user has successfully infected thousands of additional users, allowing the virus to quickly spread throughout the American east coast and beyond. The Russian-born virus started infecting computers worldwide by 9 o'clock eastern time. The tech industry had become aware of the MyDoom monster by noon. Security firms from all over the world compete to find the virus and develop a cure for the infection. By noon in America, the virus had spread throughout the world and was present in one out of every ten emails sent. Due to how widespread its effects are global internet speeds actually decrease by 10%, and loading times for typical web pages jump by a staggering 50%.

Reverse-engineering the virus code is already being done by IT professionals in order to develop a fix. In order to observe how the virus behaves and, more importantly, what its ultimate objective is, they permit it to infect a secluded network. Maybe it's just a fun joke. The world's computer security firms undoubtedly hope so, given the alarming rate of infection, but their hopes are quickly dashed. With the infected computers being used to build what may be the largest botnet of infected computers in internet history, the virus is getting ready for stage one of an unknown evil purpose. The question is, who is building a vast global network of slave computers, and for what purpose will they use it to turn the personal computers of thousands of users?

By the afternoon, the virus had reached its peak, and newscasters all over the world were urging users to update their virus protection. However, it's usually too late for most people, or even worse, suspicious users won't let their anti-virus software automatically download important updates because they're worried about getting a new infection. The spread of MyDoom is still almost entirely unchecked. The following day, the FBI and Secret Service start looking into the worm's origins, and a $250,000 reward is put up for information that results in the capture of the worm's creator. MyDoom's spread has slowed slightly as users have grown more aware of it; currently, it only affects one in every twelve emails sent globally, but it still causes significant internet slowdowns.

Even worse, there is a second iteration of the worm called MyDoom. B starts to grow. MyDoom spread for two days before it was stopped. It is now established that B exists. The latest iteration of the virus is even more dangerous than the previous one; it actually prevents users from updating their antivirus programs, leaving their computers open to infection. The massive global botnet is now being used against Microsoft and internet security firm SCO Group in a distributed denial of service attack intended to bring the two companies' networks to a grinding halt, even though international security agencies have now identified Russia as the source of the attack. But it soon becomes clear that the attack was flawed and that MyDoom's true goal was to give whoever released it backdoor access to the computers of Microsoft and SCO Group.

MyDoom's spread has accelerated recently after initially slowing down, with the virus now present in half of all email traffic worldwide. The virus now actively prevents users from accessing the websites of more than 60 internet security providers, preventing them from downloading vital security updates and fixes. MyDoom is actively working to keep infected users infected and is surprisingly effective in doing so. Online marketing firms, many of which are well-known American firms, are also targeted. MyDoom has prevented pop-up ads from DoubleClick and other advertising companies from appearing, which may be the least annoying side effect for infected users.

The financial impact, however, very quickly climbs into the tens of millions, both in terms of lost revenue and the rapidly rising costs of technical support for users around the world, bugs in MyDoom by the end of January. BS codes are actually working against it, significantly slowing the rate of infection. But it's already spread throughout the world's computers, slowing down web traffic. Microsoft has increased the reward for information leading to the capture of the developer of MyDooms by matching the previous quarter-million-dollar reward, bringing the total to $500,000. The SCO Group's website was moved from www.sco.com to another domain on February 1 as a result of the massive denial-of-service attack launched by MyDoom against the organization.

Visit www.thescogroup.com to stay ahead of the attack, but the majority of users are unable to access the group's website. With over a million computers released into a massive botnet created by MyDoom, this is now the largest electronic attack in history. In Russia, the virus's country of origin, only about 13 percent of computers are infected, a number that is significantly lower thanks to users' better security practices. Microsoft is attacked by MyDoom two days later, but the company is well-prepared for this attack. Microsoft has already developed an alternative website that users can access online: microsoft.com, an organization that the worm misses. The business has also been proactive in preparing for the impending electronic assault, and its IT specialists are well-prepared for the attack.

In fact, Microsoft is so well prepared that the impact of the attack on the business is less than the burden of the regular daily software updates the business distributes. Finally, a match was found for the unstoppable computer virus, and it was soundly defeated. That does not, however, mean that the nightmare is over. Despite the fact that MyDoom is well known, many users are unaware that B was trying to build a backdoor into infected computers, and on February 9th, Doomjuice was released. Using the backdoor that MyDoom created, this worm only spreads to infected computers, to get inside there is a fresh DDoS assault against Microsoft.

Although the creators of the virus are still unknown, Russian security company Kaspersky Labs confirms that the virus is of Russian origin and collaborates with law enforcement to find the offenders. While the world continues to pay attention to DDoS attacks, Kaspersky Labs issues a warning that the virus's true goal might be to build enormous email relays that can be sold to the spam industry for enormous profit. The virus attack is so sophisticated and well-coordinated that many people believe organized crime is responsible. While many people believe Russian criminals are to blame, others warn that the perpetrators may have simply been using Russian domains to hide their tracks.

Now at a record-breaking $650,000, the reward is the highest one to date for information that results in the arrest of the offenders. The original MyDoom version is set to stop propagating three days later, despite this, the backdoor that the malicious bug secretly installed is still active, giving the perpetrators access to possibly more than 500,000 computers worldwide. MyDoom was available by March 1. B also self-destructs, but logically, the backdoor is still open. MyDoom's damage is being repaired by security experts at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue and technical support. Even businesses that are not specifically targeted by the attack are affected by the worm's internet slowdown, which slows down e-commerce and increases the worm's economic damage.

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