In the old days...

To the guys at Alwil,

How were virus definitions distributed in the old days before the widespread use of the internet (say around 1990)? This has been bothering me for some time now and I would like to put my mind at ease now. ;D

Carrier Pidgeons maybe??? ;D ;D
Poney Express???

The biggest change since the internet, of course, is the availability of rapid distribution of def updates for wide-spectrum detection software like avast and most of the others around today.

Back in the old days, most of us home users didn’t use any such detection, other than sometimes diskette-based programs for which the only updates were (rare) updates to the programs themselves. Remember when standard procedure was to use one of those as a write-protected bootable floppy, to avoid problems with a possibly already infected HD and boot sector?

About the only mass-protection thing I can remember from those days was during the Michelangelo scare, something like 15 years ago now. IBM distributed to anyone who requested it a diskette based tool for detecting specifically that one , along with comments that cleaning it, if it turned up, was very iffy.

I had an old IBM (33 MHz!!!) that had IBM’s antivirus program, and I was infected with the AntiCMOS virus. IBM’s antivirus was able to clean up the infection by replacing the CMOS with a clean one. But what bothered me was: what if a new virus was spread and the antivirus program couldn’t detect it? Hence my question.

xistenz
Remember that all AV and Anti Malware companies are always playing a catch up game.
Since the Virus or Malware always comes first, we are always at risk.
That’s one of the reasons why the user must excersize caution and prudence.
None of which guaratees 100% assurance that you couldn’t get infected but it at least
decreases your chances.
This is another reason to have a good backup procedure in place.
When all else fails, you should always have a safe clean backup ready to be installed.

Bob is Correct. Backup Backup Backup! No Matter What OS You use its always good to have a backup in case of hardware failure (or if you use windows a virus attack)

Yes, antivirus programs were distributed on floppy - just like the viruses.

I remember to have used such wonderful program to clean my Amiga computer and some 200 floppies.
After this cumbersome task everything was unusable for ever: there was a virus on the antivirus floppy…

The name of the virus was Saddam.

Not only floppys, but once in awhile you would come across a virus on a CD. Normally this happened on compiled CDs… ones loaded with shareware programs and aimed toward Sysops for BBS use. This one I know of personally as I ran a BBS myself from 90-95’ It was Pcboard Software, run thru Desqview and all files uploaded to the system were scanned on another drive using McAfee’s (used to trust it more then others) and FProt.