CIH facts for kids
The CIH virus, also known as Chernobyl or Spacefiller, was a computer virus that first appeared in 1998. It was created by a student named Chen Ing-hau, and its name comes from his initials. This virus was designed to attack computers running an older system called Windows 9x.
Contents
What Was the CIH Virus?
The CIH virus was a type of computer virus that could cause serious problems for computers. It was also known as Chernobyl because it activated on April 26, the anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. Another name for it was Spacefiller because of how it worked.
How Did the CIH Virus Spread?
The CIH virus first appeared in 1998. It was created by a student named Chen Ing-hau. Sadly, some computers were even sold with the virus already on them. For example, in 1999, the company IBM accidentally shipped some of their IBM Aptiva computers with the virus. Also, some video games, like SiN by Activision and Wing Commander by Electronic Arts, were released with the virus hidden inside them. This made it easy for the virus to spread to many computers.
What Did the CIH Virus Do?
When a computer infected with the CIH virus was turned on on April 26, the virus would activate. It would start adding lots of data to files on the computer's hard drive. This would mess up the files and make them unusable.
Even worse, on some computers, the virus would damage the BIOS. The BIOS is like the computer's basic instruction manual that helps it start up. If the BIOS was corrupted, the computer would not be able to turn on or work at all.
How Could Computers Recover from CIH?
If a computer's hard drive was damaged by CIH, people needed special data recovery software to try and get their files back. If the BIOS was corrupted, it was even harder. The BIOS had to be fixed manually, which means someone had to carefully re-install the correct instructions.
It's important to know that the CIH virus only affected computers running Windows 9x. It could not infect newer systems like Windows NT computers.
How Much Damage Did CIH Cause?
The CIH virus caused a lot of trouble around the world. It resulted in over 1 billion USD worth of damage. This huge amount of money was lost because of the time and effort needed to fix infected computers and recover lost data.
