“Don’t turn on your computer on March 6”: all about the phenomenon that scared millions of people in the 90s

“The world held its breath… and nervously turned on its computers…”, read a well-known American newspaper in March 1992. On the 6th of that month and of that year, the cyber Apocalypse should have happened by hand of the Michelangelo virusHowever, almost nothing happened…

In early 1991, the mastermind behind the VET antivirus, the Australian roger riordandiscovered the computer virus that months later would be known by the name of the famous Renaissance artist.

Many experts suggest that he was born in Scandinavia. Others who were in Australia. Strangely, no one knows who created it. Michelangelo’s origin is sinister: it would have been for fun.

Riordan caught Michelangelo thanks to a blunder. She left a virus-infected floppy disk on his computer overnight. When he turned on the device, a series of strange noises let him know that something was wrong.

The Australian’s discovery served to find one of the two great weaknesses of the virus: its environment. The fact that Riordan “caught” him for a floppy disk error confirmed that the Michelangelo virus “infected” the floppy disks.

Over time, researchers determined that the virus was designed to infect DOS systems, especially the master boot record on hard drives and floppy disks. It was a variant of the Stoned Sector virus, one of the earliest computer viruses in history.

In particular, the Michelangelo deactivated a computer if it was turned on on March 6th. Hence, from Michelangelo’s birthday, the surprising name of him.

When the PC was turned on, the virus replaced the boot drives with junk instructions, making it virtually impossible to recover system information.

Chaotic Michelangelo

The virus caught the specialists off guard. The virtual era we control today was just beginning. No one was prepared for millions of computers around the world to fall into the hands of a joke like Michelangelo.

“We couldn’t believe it, we’ve never seen this kind of virus before,” a computer specialist told Reuters at the time.

Many antivirus vendors, including McAfee, offered solutions, but they weren’t very focused.

“Panicized computer users throughout the Washington area are scrambling to protect their machines before a highly destructive computer ‘virus’ known as Michelangelo strikes tomorrow,” reported the Washington Post on March 5, 1992.

No one knew what would happen the next day, the fateful 6. If Michelangelo had attacked, millions of users would have risked losing the information on their computers..

But the virus didn’t wait for the 6th. It arrived in Japan earlier. In the island country they had forgotten to change the PCs’ dates. Consequence: thousands of dollars in losses.

The second weakness of the virus was exposed that day: If you didn’t turn on your computer on March 6, nothing happened.

Apart from some minor damage and some ruined equipment, Michelangelo practically did not cause serious damage.

Months later they launched an antivirus against the Michelangelo and it was learned that on March 6 it was certainly dangerous to turn on the computer if it was infected by the virus.

Done in color: The March 6 Los Angeles Times noted complications in Bariloche from the virus. The DYN news agency reported that there were computers in that Argentine city that had lost everything.