Spotlight on Malware: The Happy 99 worm.

With today being the 4th of July and all, I thought that it would be a good idea to do a short post about a piece of malware that has something to do with fireworks. And I think the Happy99 worm is the best representation of that. This is why it will be our focus for today.

The Happy99 worm first appeared via email in January of 1999. It is generally considered to be the first piece of malware spread by email. The worm installs itself without the knowledge or consent of the user. When executed, animated fireworks and a Happy New Year message is seen.

The worm modifies WinStock, a Windows communication library, to allow itself to spread. The worm then attaches itself automatically to all subsequent emails sent by a user. It also modifies a registry key which will automatically run the worm any time the computer is rebooted.

It is unknown how many computers were infected by this worm. However, when malware researcher Craig Schmugar posted a fix for the worm on his website, one million people downloaded it. The amount of downloads suggest that the malware may have broken a record for amount of machines infected at the time.

Thank you for reading. I invite readers to comment below with any comments or questions. Have a happy 4th of July, no matter if you are in America or not.