MS-DOS Malware Is Now Available In Internet Archives Museum

If you suffer from computer virus nostalgia, you are about to be cured because all of the MS-DOS malware is now available in Internet Archives museum.

The collection was gathered by Mikko Hypponen, a software engineer that has spent more than twenty years gathering and analyzing computer viruses from the glam years of hacking, the 80’s and the 90’s.

After gathering a large number of such pesky bugs, he stripped them from all the harm that they pose and stored them into an impressive on-line collection that is now free to browse on the Internet Archives.

But beware upon accessing the site because the level of nostalgia will grow exponentially if you were an MS-DOS user in a past lifetime.

The archive is comprised out of a great number and variety of old-school computer viruses. They date back from an age in which “hackers” were more interested in annoying people than actually do real harm or steal sensible information like they are trying to do now with false Facebook posts or links.

Back then viruses had personality. Like the Casino virus, the computer malware inspiration for Saw’s Jigsaw maniac. The virus would make copies of all your files, store them in your RAM memory and then make you play a game. If you won the Disk Destroyer game then you were able to keep your files, if you didn’t, well, all of them would have been erased.

There were more innocent viruses as well. The Techno malware would replace all of the words on your computer screen with the word “Techno” while playing a techno psychedelic tune. The sort of music you would find in a Packman arcade game.

Of course, the ‘90s were a great source of pop culture icons. And the Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator is an enduring one. Most would remember that the killer robot turned good was sent from the future by a company named Skynet.

Well, technology keen fans of the movie created a malware version of Skynet. The virus was pretty harmless. All it did was to make the screen go red and display the message

“Don’t be afraid. I am a very kind virus. You have do many works today. So, I will let your computer slow down. Have a nice day, Goodbye.”

Then all you had to do was press a key to head back to your daily routine.

The MS-DOS malware is now available in Internet Archives museum and it is a trip to the past that any computer owner should take, no matter if they lived in the Windows MS-DOS era or not.

The Malware Museum can be visited here.

Image source: www.wikimedia.org