Mar. 6 The Michelangelo Computer Virus
Before this date in 1992, predictions were buzzing in the computer world because the Michelangelo virus was predicted to reach enormous proportions. It was predicted it would affect all personal computers that relied on a disk to boot the DOS system.
Guess Who Led The Predictions
Of course if you saw a forecasted problem and you had a solution, what would you do?
Antivirus pioneer John McAfee certainly helped get the word out by estimating the virus could infect as many as 5 million computers. That was a lot in the early 1990s. Since 1987 John McAfee had been testing antivirus software. This upcoming prediction was his big day. A few months before attack day, March 6, McAfee became an almost-overnight success, with sales of its software skyrocketing because of the publicity Michelangelo received.
So What Was The Virus Impact on March 6, 1992?
When the day actually arrived, only 10-20 thousand cases of the virus were reported. Of AT&T's 250,000 business computers in use worldwide, Michelangelo hit only two.
But A New Fear Seized The Public
Although the virus itself had minimal real world impact in terms of the number of infected computers, the publicity surrounding Michelangelo brought the issue of computer security into the public eye. Because most people at that time still had little knowledge of computer viruses, ordinary users began purchasing antivirus solutions in mass. IBM couldn’t keep its stores stocked fast enough.
Computer Virus Attacks Are Real
Remember the days when online viruses held computers hostage? Those were really scary days.
Recently viruses seem to be curtailed by antivirus software. Let’s hope they remain constrained.
What Do You Use For Anti-Virus Protection?
The most common virus protection software names are Norton 360, McAfee, TotalAv, PCProtect, Bitdefender, Avast, ScanGuard, Kaspersky, and Malwarebytes.
We use Windows Defender for anti-virus protection and Comodo firewall for VPN Firewall protection. Every night we remove trackers and clean file space with CCleaner.
We do hope your computer stays virus free.
Recent Comments
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I use the protection offered by Apple. It seems adequate, but I really have no idea how to be sure. So much of what we do today is driven by speculation and public comment about the future. Its a good thing McAfee pushed the world to think about security.
I recently renewed my McAfee Antivirus subscription. I realise I have to protect my computer so that my WA business won’t get disrupted.
Thanks for your timely post.
Hi George, I have tried Norton but they took over my whole computer, not good ended up deleting it. Next was McAfee and the free Avast.
Right now I am just using Windows Defender I feel it does the trick.
Best wishes,
Michael
Is Windows Defender effective? I pay for MacAffe but WD comes free with Win 10. Do I need to keep paying for any antivirus software?
I am only giving you my opinion and experience so you can decide what is best for your situation.
We used to pay for Norton 360, but were told by friends who work on their computers a lot that Windows Defender is much better than it used to be for virus detection and that it is sufficient for computers using Windws10. We decided to try it and have had no problems in 2 years. That does not mean a virus could not happen. The unknown virus would is hard to predict.
So we use Windows Defender (Free), Comodo Firewall (Free) and CCleaner (Free).
I run the free version of cleaner regularly. I thought windows had a default firewall.
Do you know of Any free VPNs?
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Excellent post, George! Thanks for sharing this, my friend!
Jeff
You are welcome.
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