Computer Virus Reaches 25

It has been 25 years since the first officially recognized computer virus was unleashed.

Dubbed Elk Cloner, the virus was created in 1982 by ninth-grade computer enthusiast Rich Skrenta . He is quoted in the London Free Press as saying: "It was some dumb little practical joke. "I guess if you had to pick between being known for this and not being known for anything, I'd rather be known for this. But it's an odd placeholder for [all] I've done."

Since Elk Cloner there has been a plethora of other viruses, some highly damaging, to hit PCs around the world. The Associated Press today compiled a list of some of the more damaging viruses over the years, including the Brain virus, released in 1986. Brain has the dubious honor of being the first virus to appear on computers running Microsoft products. In 1999, the world was hit by Melissa, one of the first viruses to be disseminated over email.

The most recent virus on the list is the notorious Sasser, which hit computers in 2004 and caused computers to repetitively crash and reboot.