SoLong
The SoLong virus was a cyberweapon developed by Mason Burke and the Global Resistance Movement in order to destroy the global communication network. Originally designed as a small-scale weapon to disable communications during terrorist attacks, the scope of the project rapidly grew more and more ambitious. Many researchers who have examined the cyberweapon after its containment have described it as the first "weaponised AI", owing to its rapidly adaptive nature and self-preservation properties.
SoLong is designed to propagate through networks at rapid speed, burying itself in the low-level machine code of any device it infects, and using network access to upload itself to any device it can find. SoLong then utilises a tiny percentage of the device's computing power as part of a distributed network to coordinate itself and begin self-modification. If the virus was completed and released into the internet, experts claim it could have infected two-thirds of all devices on the planet in under 24 hours. Once the virus had spread itself sufficiently, it would simultaneously execute a self-destruct command on all infected devices, corrupting network drivers and erasing servers. It is believed that the Global Resistance Movement would have then executed some kind of large-scale attack or series of attacks while the world was unable to respond.
In 2065, Cybersyn Technologies contracted a number of Operatives with finding out why several of their server racks had gone offline, and their core database was running slightly slower. They suspected a rival corporation, likely Wescott Advanced Technology, had sabotaged them. Instead, the hired Operatives traced the virus to a compound in India, where they eliminated a GRM cell and recovered a copy of the virus. The staggering scale of the weapon was soon realised by Cybersyn, and they quickly developed and deployed a countermeasure. However, it is unknown if additional copies of the virus still exist.
SoLong is designed to propagate through networks at rapid speed, burying itself in the low-level machine code of any device it infects, and using network access to upload itself to any device it can find. SoLong then utilises a tiny percentage of the device's computing power as part of a distributed network to coordinate itself and begin self-modification. If the virus was completed and released into the internet, experts claim it could have infected two-thirds of all devices on the planet in under 24 hours. Once the virus had spread itself sufficiently, it would simultaneously execute a self-destruct command on all infected devices, corrupting network drivers and erasing servers. It is believed that the Global Resistance Movement would have then executed some kind of large-scale attack or series of attacks while the world was unable to respond.
In 2065, Cybersyn Technologies contracted a number of Operatives with finding out why several of their server racks had gone offline, and their core database was running slightly slower. They suspected a rival corporation, likely Wescott Advanced Technology, had sabotaged them. Instead, the hired Operatives traced the virus to a compound in India, where they eliminated a GRM cell and recovered a copy of the virus. The staggering scale of the weapon was soon realised by Cybersyn, and they quickly developed and deployed a countermeasure. However, it is unknown if additional copies of the virus still exist.
Item type
Weapon, Other
Creation Date
2062 (first prototype)
Destruction Date
2065 (antivirus)
Manufacturer
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