Viruses, whether virtual or real, have impacted our lives. If the virus is well known, more likely it caused a lot of damage and grief to people around the world. Virtual viruses, like worms and trojans, have been known to corrupt or steal sensitive information from one’s computer. Here is one of the most well known computer viruses in the last century:
agent.btz (2008)
This piece of malware’s claim to fame is that it temporarily forced the Pentagon to issue a blanket ban on thumb drives and even contributed to the creation of an entirely new military department, U.S. Cyber Command. Agent.btz spreads through infected thumb drives, installing malware that steals data. When agent.btz was found on Pentagon computers in 2008, officials suspected the work of foreign spies. Former Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynne later wrote that agent.btz created “a digital beachhead, from which data could be transferred to servers under foreign control.” Though some anti-virus experts have disputed the contention that the virus was the creation of a foreign intelligence agency, its effect was to make cyber war a formal part of U.S. military strategy.
Danger Room broke the story in November 2008 that the Army got spooked by Agent.btz after it was discovered crawling through the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network, which the Defense and State departments use to transmit classified material, noting at the time that the U.S. Strategic Command had suspended the use of USB drives as well as external hard drives and any other removable media as a result of the worm. The Post story adds that the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communication System, which carries top-secret information to U.S. officials throughout the world, was also infected.
What did Pentagon do?
The Pentagon effort to disinfect systems took 14 months, in an operation dubbed “Buckshot Yankee,” a process that eventually led the armed forces to revamp its information defenses and create a new military unit, U.S. Cyber Command.
Agent.btz has infiltrated Pentagon, one of the most secured places in the entire world. This is a really huge feat for any kind of computer virus.
