During the Cold War, the Bulgarian government authorized projects to reverse engineer Western technology.
[4] Anti-virus researchers identified Bulgaria as having talented programmers who had few commercial opportunities,[4] and Bulgarian security researcher Vesselin Bontchev blamed the viruses on the country's history of pirating Western computer code and failure to teach students about computer ethics.
[1] Dark Avenger's viruses made frequent references to heavy metal bands, including Iron Maiden, and Diana, Princess of Wales.
[6] Due to its highly infectious nature, the virus spread worldwide, reaching Western Europe, the USSR, the United States, and East Asia.
[3] Dutch author Harry Mulisch reported encountering the virus on his laptop while writing The Discovery of Heaven.
As a major means for spreading the source code of his viruses, Dark Avenger used the then popular bulletin board systems.
[10] Following its release, Paul Mungo and Bryan Clough called MtE "the most dangerous virus ever produced",[4] and Steve Gibson wrote that "the game is forever changed".
[10] In 1992, Dark Avenger described himself as a heavy metal fan under 30 who wrote viruses while procrastinating at his job.
[14] Bennahum did not uncover Dark Avenger's identity but came to suspect the operator of a Bulgarian bulletin board system that collected computer viruses in the 1990s.