The First Antivirus Product Is Released

Setting the scene

Personal computers spread through offices and homes in the 1980s, and prank programs like the Elk Cloner and Brain virus showed that malicious code could travel on floppy disks.

What happened

Bernd Fix released a removal tool for the Vienna virus around 1987, while companies including McAfee and Symantec began selling commercial scanners that same era.

Why it still matters

Antivirus software became a standard layer of PC security and later evolved into broader endpoint protection suites. Memorable detail: the Brain virus, written in Pakistan, displayed contact information for its authors rather than destroying data.

Background

Malware defense became a software category.