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Michaelangelo

The Michelangelo virus was a boot sector virus first discovered in 1991 that infected the master boot record of hard drives. It remained dormant until March 6th, when in some systems it would erase data. In 1992, there was widespread panic about the virus potentially infecting millions of systems, though in reality only 10,000-20,000 cases of data loss were reported that day. While the scare increased awareness of computer security and likely led to more systems having anti-virus software installed, it also damaged the reputation of the anti-virus industry.

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57 views1 page

Michaelangelo

The Michelangelo virus was a boot sector virus first discovered in 1991 that infected the master boot record of hard drives. It remained dormant until March 6th, when in some systems it would erase data. In 1992, there was widespread panic about the virus potentially infecting millions of systems, though in reality only 10,000-20,000 cases of data loss were reported that day. While the scare increased awareness of computer security and likely led to more systems having anti-virus software installed, it also damaged the reputation of the anti-virus industry.

Uploaded by

Aira Pangilinan
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© © All Rights Reserved
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What is the Michelangelo Virus?

On March 6, 1992, a pre-internet era virus caused what was arguably the first ever public
malware scare in history. Named after the famous renaissance painter who shared the same March
6 birth date, the Michelangelo virus scare remains a significant turning point for computer security,
25 years after its supposed major impact.
The Michelangelo virus was first discovered in February 1991 by Australian veteran anti-
virus expert Roger Riordan. Riordan, the brains behind VET, a popular anti-virus program down
under, probably didn’t think that the virus was particularly special.
Michelangelo is classified as a boot sector virus, a type of virus that infects the startup
sectors of storage devices—usually the boot sector of a floppy disk or the master boot record
(MBR) of a hard disk. Boot sector viruses are primarily spread through physical media such as
floppy disks or USB drives. They typically infect computers that boot using disks containing the
malware, activating whenever the storage device loads.
Although designed to infect DOS systems, the virus can easily disrupt other operating
systems installed on the system since, like many viruses of its era, the Michelangelo infects the
master boot record of a hard drive. Once a system became infected, any floppy disk inserted into
the system (and written to; in 1992 a PC system could not detect that a floppy had been inserted,
so the virus could not infect the floppy until some access to the disk is made) becomes immediately
infected as well. And because the virus spends most of its time dormant, activating only on March
6, it is conceivable that an infected computer could go for years without detection — as long as it
wasn't booted on that date, while infected.
Although the infected machines numbered only in the hundreds, the resulting publicity
spiraled into "expert" claims, partially led by anti-virus company founder John McAfee,[2][3] of
thousands or even millions of computers infected by Michelangelo. However, on March 6, 1992,
only 10,000 to 20,000 cases of data loss were reported.
In subsequent years, users were advised not to run PCs on March 6, waiting until March 7,
or else reset the PC date to March 7 at some time on March 5 (to skip March 6). Eventually, the
news media lost interest, and the virus was quickly forgotten. Despite the scenario given above, in
which an infected computer could evade detection for years, by 1997 no cases were being reported.
It’s true to say that a lot of computers probably had anti-virus software installed on them
because of the Michelangelo scare, and it is believed that the scare did some good because of the
number of computers which probably had other malware found on them as a result of the panic.
But it was a panic and that’s rarely a good thing, although some tried to argue that the only reason
there hadn’t been a much larger number of computers hit by Michelangelo’s payload was because
of the hysterical reporting of the threat, the truth is that the anti-virus industry was damaged. The
newspapers turned on the very people who had told them about the risk, and accused them of
exploiting fear in order to sell anti-virus.

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