It's Sickening

The first computer virus appeared November 18, 1983. Now doesn't a virus need a network? At this point the Internet was that nasty dark screen and you had to type in every URL. How many people were using it then? Still Fred Cohen, a computing student, wrote the first virus. Didn't unleash it. Both users would have been devasted. Plus, I suppose, the U.S. government but they were just using the network to run the country.
In 1987 Brain, the first computer virus to be released, is set upon us.
In 1989 IBM releases the first commercial antivirus product.
Over 700,000 new computer viruses were identified in 2007 according to Symantec.
More than you wanted to know? Me too.

Computer Weekly 11/18/2003
PC World; Dec 2000, Vol. 18 Issue 12, p193
Macworld; Jul2008, Vol. 25 Issue 7, p26-26