The antivirus industry, of course, had no thoughts of creating a hobby for insecure technology wizards when it began its campaign of publicity and hype in 1987 and 1988. But there was little question that by the end of 1989 a real threat to computer systems had been created, posed by what was indeed becoming a plague of viruses. The number of catalogued viruses in the West would grow exponentially: from thirty-odd in mid-1988, to a hundred at the end of 1989, five hundred in 1990 and over two thousand-plus at the end of 1992. Along the way the antivirus industry would lose all control of the plague--its security software overwhelmed, its confidence battered by the sheer number of new viruses confronting it. And the new viruses became much more destructive, malicious, and uncontrollable than anyone had ever imagined.
