Virus Creation Laboratory

The Virus Creation Laboratory (VCL) was one of the earliest attempts to provide a virus creation tool so that individuals with little to no programming expertise could mass-create computer viruses.^[1] VCL required a password for access, which was widely published alongside VCL. The password was "Chiba City",^[2] a likely reference to the William Gibson novel Neuromancer.

Virus Creation Laboratory

VCL Title Screen in Windows Vista
Developer(s)	Nowhere Man
Stable release	1.0 / July 5, 1992
Operating system	MS-DOS
Type	Virus creation
License	Freeware

A hacker dubbed "Nowhere Man", of the NuKE hacker group, released the software in July 1992.^[3][4]

However, it was later discovered that viruses created with the Virus Creation Laboratory were often ineffective, as many anti-virus programs of the day caught them easily. Also, many viruses created by the program did not work at all - and often, their source codes could not be compiled, thus rendering the virus program created unusable.^[5] Despite its limitations, several viruses created with the program became widespread.^[6]