Today, many of us take online security seriously, but there was once a time when our attitude to staying safe on the web was a little more lax. Over a decade ago, when many people were still getting to grips with the internet, a handful of enterprising cyber criminals were able to take advantage by creating a series of massive viruses which were as expensive as they were widespread.
As displayed in the following infographic, the biggest viruses to date were during the early part of the last decade. This was when awareness of viruses was starting to grow, but many weren’t stopped in their tracks before thousands, if not millions of computers became compromised. After their full extent was revealed, the most eye-popping thing about them was the financial costs.
Five Most Catastrophic Viruses of All Time Infographic
The damage caused amounted to billions of dollars, as it made many computers unusable without extensive repair. The same could be said for many websites affected by these viruses. Today, viruses still cause multiple problems, infecting machines through malicious advertising or booby-trapped web pages and email attachments. Fortunately, awareness has grown, but the problems persist.