Malware: Fighting Malicious Code

Malicious Code History

Although we've witnessed a huge increase in malicious code attacks in the last few years, malware is certainly not new. Attackers have been churning out highly effective evil programs for decades. However, with the constant evolutionary improvement in the capabilities of these attack tools, and the rapid spread of the Internet into every nook and cranny of our economy, today's malicious code has far greater impact than the attacks of yesteryear. Let's take a nostalgic stroll down memory lane to get an idea of the roots of malicious code and to understand the direction these tools are heading in the future. Figure 1.1 shows a plot of these major malicious code events over the past 20 or so years.

Figure 1.1. More than 20 ...