The core principle of the ransomware industry is pretty straightforward: It’s the desire to make money by demanding ransom. While there are a few exceptions (destructive, usually politically motivated attacks, like NotPetya), this has been the primary motivation behind ransomware. What was the first specimen like? Who created it and why?
The first ransomware (called “PC Cyborg,” but also known as AIDS or Aids Info Disk) was released in 1989. Its distribution method was rather primitive — it was distributed on floppy disks by the postal service. The disk was labeled “AIDS Information — Introductory Diskettes” and 20,000 copies were sent to attendees of an AIDS conference organized by the World Health Organization.
After installation, it would modify a machine’s AUTOEXEC.BAT file and, after 90 boots, encrypt the names (not content) of the files on the disk. To decrypt files, users would have to send $189 to a P.O. box in Panama.
Here comes an unexpected twist: This first species of ransomware wasn’t created by a hacker or a professional programmer, but by an evolutionary biologist — Dr. Joseph L. Popp — with a PhD from Harvard. Dr. Popp was actively involved in AIDS research and claimed that he planned to donate the profits to AIDS educational programs. He had been working on his plan for almost 2 years and was planning to send an additional 2 million disks.
Dr. Popp was later declared insane and unfit to stand trial. True story: After PC Cyborg had its day, he wrote a controversial book about evolution (Popular Evolution), spent 15 years studying baboons in East Africa, and then opened a butterfly sanctuary in upstate New York (still open).
