History and stories
The first ransomware arrived in the mail
Ransomware feels like a modern problem. The first known example was posted, on floppy disks, more than thirty years ago.
1 min readStory
The short version
In 1989, thousands of floppy disks were mailed to researchers. After enough restarts, they locked the computer and demanded payment.
The story
In December 1989, about 20,000 floppy disks labeled “AIDS Information Introductory Diskette” arrived by post at the offices of researchers, many of whom had attended a World Health Organization conference on AIDS. The disk contained a questionnaire about the disease.
It also contained a hidden program. After the computer had been restarted about 90 times, it hid the folders on the hard drive, scrambled the file names and displayed a demand: send a “license fee” to a company called PC Cyborg Corporation at a post office box in Panama.
The disks had been sent by Joseph Popp, a biologist. He was arrested, but was later judged unfit to stand trial. Security researchers soon published tools that undid the damage, because the scrambling was simple to reverse.
What changed since
Modern ransomware uses encryption that cannot be undone without the key, demands payment in cryptocurrency, and often steals a copy of the data first to threaten publication. It arrives through stolen passwords and phishing rather than the post.
The lesson today
The idea has not changed in more than thirty years: lock up what the business depends on and charge for the key. The defense has not changed either. A business that can restore its files from a backup the attackers cannot reach has a choice that does not involve paying.
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