Myth: viruses documented on NNNN computers

http://www.kumite.com/myths

Tell friends & colleagues about virus hoaxes the easy way

MYTH: "viruses have been documented or estimated on <number> of computers"

Specific MYTH: "viruses have been documented on over 300,000 computers" {1988}

Specific MYTH: "viruses have been documented on over 400,000 computers" {1989}

Specific MYTH: "the Michelangelo virus alone was estimated to be on over 5,000,000 computers" {1992}

Reality:

These numbers originated from John McAfee, a self-styled virus fighter who craves attention and media recognition. If we assume it took him only five minutes to adequately document each viral infection, it would have taken four man-years of effort to document a problem only two years old by 1989. We further assume McAfee's statements included every floppy disk ever infected up to that time by a virus, as well as every computer involved in the Christmas and InterNet worm attacks. (Worm incidents should not appear in virus infection statistics.)

McAfee prefers to "estimate" his totals these days and was widely quoted during the Michelangelo virus hysteria in early 1992. Let's do some estimating ourselves by assuming 80 million IBM PC-compatible computers around the world at the time. McAfee's estimate meant one out of every 16 computers on the planet didn't just have a virus -- his estimate said one out of 16 computers on the planet specifically had the Michelangelo virus. Most other genuine virus experts considered it an astronomical estimate based on the empirical evidence.

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