Tuesday, May 10, 2016

"the first-ever ransomware attack went after AIDS researchers [in 1989]—and it was distributed on 5.25-inch floppy disks."

Atlantic:
When participating scientists loaded the disk, their computers became infected with what would come to be known as a digital version of the AIDS virus. It lay dormant for a while: For the next 89 times the computer was turned on, everything would seem normal. But on the 90th boot, an angry red message splashed across the screen.