Elk Cloner is one of the first known
microcomputer viruses that spread "in the wild",
i.e., outside the computer system or laboratory in which it was written. It attached itself to the
Apple II operating system and spread by floppy disk. It was written around 1982 by a 15-year-old high school student,
Rich Skrenta. It was originally a joke, created and put onto a game disk.