Briefly describe the main characteristics of the Trojan AIDS.

What will be an ideal response?

This Trojan was distributed through the postal mail in 1989. It arrived on a floppy disk that allegedly contained information about AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) and HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus). The actual payload was aids.exe, which would encrypt the hard drive. The AIDS Trojan prompted the user to pay a fee for the password needed to decrypt the hard drive. The AIDS Trojan was unique because rather than destroy files, it held them hostage, demanding a ransom before the user could open and use the files again.