Back then, there were still lots of "wipers" that deleted files and/or destroyed the OS. Now it's all spyware and ransomware.

i'm mostly just sad that the funny side of malicious software is gone.

There's no more funny malware. It's all ransomware and stealers.

Vandalism became theft and kidnapping

u aren't wrong.

I was just about to comment that this reminded me of the sub7 days. Not sure when it was released, but I definitely used it in 1998

Edit, memory was wrong, it was released in February 1999