The first days of the antivirus industry

Jan 16, 2020 13:55 GMT  ·  By

Antivirus software has long been a key part of the typical computer user’s security arsenal, especially as malware authors have always been looking into more sophisticated methods to compromise devices.

There was a time, however, when the term antivirus didn’t ring any bells to anyone, pretty much because such software didn’t exist. And of course, it happened for a good reason: the concept of malware was still a new thing and the existing computer virus infections barely did any damage.

The first antivirus companies were founded in mid-‘80s at a time when the most prevalent virus was “Vienna,” whose removal was possible thanks to security expert Bernd Fix.

But on the other hand, when it comes to the inventor of the antivirus, there’s a long-time dispute here.

The antivirus industry was still in its early days in the 80s, but thanks to a handful of companies, it recorded a huge boom following the release of security products that became more advanced with every update.

First of all, it’s G Data, which itself says on the company’s official website that it invented the antivirus after the firm saw daylight in 1985.

“G DATA has developed the world's first antivirus software. Even today we are pioneers for innovative IT security solutions, which are regularly awarded by institutes and the trade press,” it says (emphasis is ours).

G Data Software was founded by security experts Andreas Lüning and Kai Figge, with the company launching an antivirus solution specifically aimed at the Atari ST platform in 1987.

During the same year, however, John McAfee founded McAfee, the well-known security company that eventually become one of the leading security vendors worldwide. McAfee released VirusScan to remove Brain, the virus created by brothers Basit and Amjad Alvi of Brain Computer Services from Lahore, Pakistan.

Brain was the first widespread malware infection, with estimates pointing to some 100,000 compromised devices in just a couple of years after release. The virus, however, didn’t do any damage because it wasn’t programmed to remove files or anything, but it did slow down devices where it was deployed. It featured a mechanism to automatically copy its files to disks in order to infect more computers where the same disk was used.

The last version of McAfee VirusScan before it was replaced by modern software
The last version of McAfee VirusScan before it was replaced by modern software

McAfee was the first to decrypt how the Brain virus worked, so he created an application specifically supposed to remove it. The antivirus was called VirusScan and ended up becoming a super-successful release, with more than one million users in just two weeks after launch.

Several other security companies were founded at about the same time, including the antivirus vendor that has eventually been renamed to Avira. Originally called H+BEDV, Avira was founded in 1986 in Germany by Tjark Auerbach, and it adopted the current name in 2006. The first antivirus, however, was released in 1988, a year after McAfee’s, as AntiVir.

Another antivirus product that got to see daylight in 1988 was the one we call today Avast Antivirus. ALWIL Software was founded the same year by Pavel Baudiš and Eduard Kucera, eventually being renamed to Avast Software in 1988.

Sophos officially saw daylight in 1985, but the company only stepped into the antivirus market three years later when it launched the so-called Vaccine.

Kaspersky, which right now is one of the leading security vendors worldwide, was founded in 1997 by Eugene Kaspersky, wife Natalya Kaspersky, and colleagues Alexey De-Monderik and Vadim Bogdanov. However, the first Kaspersky product made its debut in 1989 when Eugene Kaspersky developed Cascade.1704, a virus removal tool whose original purpose was to clean infections from local work computers.

The antivirus industry has since evolved a lot, and today there are plenty of advanced solutions you can choose from. However, if you’re running Windows, it’s important to know that it comes with pre-loaded antivirus protection as well. Microsoft’s Windows Defender itself improved significantly lately, and according to the most recent test results, it provides performance that’s on par with third-party products.

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Windows itself comes with antivirus software pre-loaded
The last version of McAfee VirusScan before it was replaced by modern software
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