{"id":3123,"date":"2014-04-01T10:39:25","date_gmt":"2014-04-01T14:39:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/me-en.kaspersky.com\/blog\/?p=3123"},"modified":"2017-09-24T18:38:34","modified_gmt":"2017-09-24T14:38:34","slug":"careware","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/me-en.kaspersky.com\/blog\/careware\/3123\/","title":{"rendered":"Careware: Top 5 Somewhat Useful Malicious Programs"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the days of cyberwars and cybermafia, it\u2019s hard to recall times when computer viruses and worms were just research projects or pranks. \u00a0Back then, there were no monetary incentive to write malware, and not every virus creator was evil. That\u2019s why some programmers explored the possibility of writing \u201cuseful\u201d viruses or tried to take care of minimizing the negative impact of their creations. In a few extraordinary cases, viruses were even thought to get rid of dangerous malware or optimize the computer\u2019s resources. Let\u2019s look at 5 of the most notable \u201ccareware\u201d (as opposed to malware) viruses of the past.<\/p>\n

\"careware\"<\/a><\/p>\n

5. The Creeper (1971)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The first known computer virus in history was really academic research, and, as you might expect, it was harmless. It was called the Creeper, and it appeared in 1971, written by an employee of the US Ministry of Defense\u2019s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. This primitive worm looked for other computers on the network, which back then was a small, localized affair, copied itself to them and displayed the following message: \u201cI\u2019M THE CREEPER: CATCH ME IF YOU CAN.\u201d If Creeper found an existing copy of itself on a computer, it simply \u201cjumped over\u201d to another computer. It did not cause any harm to the computer system.<\/p>\n

4. Stoned (1988)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stoned was another \u201cfun\u201d virus whose main purpose was to promote a message to the user. It was first detected in 1988 in New Zealand. It was a boot virus that was modifying the boot sector of floppies instead of executable files. Just like Creeper, it did not cause any harm to the computer. It simply displayed a message on the screen during the boot time: \u201cYour computer is now stoned.\u201d Some samples also contained more specific calls to action: \u201cLegalize Marijuana.\u201d It seems that message finally reached its desired destination (namely U.S. politics) only in 2013.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"april1-stoned\"<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

3. HPS (1997)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The \u201cprank virus\u201d title is deservedly held by HPS, a program that was created specifically for the Windows 98 operating system but, in fact, spread months before this environment was released. One of the odd things about this virus was that it was only active on Saturdays: once a week it reversed non-compressed bitmap graphic objects. Typically it led to Windows startup and shutdown images being displayed in the mirrored state.<\/p>\n