What day is it again? After a year like 2020, I know I’m not the only one who needs the reminder. For that reason alone, 2021 marks the first year I bought a physical calendar. Depending on your style, calendars can bring more than just daily reminders– they provide a fun way of setting the tone for each year. The team at Kaspersky, a global cybersecurity company based in Russia, in collaboration with a handful of designers and artists recently debuted their calendar for 2021 and with it, they’re passing down their expertise in handling cyber threats.

Kaspersky is a company known for its deep threat intelligence and cybersecurity insight, protecting businesses, consumers, and government agencies with innovative security solutions. Their 2021 calendar basks in this cybersecurity insight, providing fun facts that coincide with each numerical month for you to read as a new month begins. For example, January, the first month of the year, introduces the story of the first-ever computer virus. Originating in Pakistan, from two brothers’ quest to protect their medical software from producing illegal copies, the first computer virus was dubbed, “The Brain.” Once the virus was written by the brothers, who had no malicious intent, it spread to the United Kingdom and the United States through transference by infected floppy disks.

September, the ninth month of the year, is represented by the story of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony getting recorded on a CD-ROM. Kaspersky’s calendar reads, “In 1980, Sony and Philips were beginning to negotiate a single industry standard for the new compact disc technology. Sony’s vice-president, Norio Ohga, suggested that Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony would…fit onto a CD in its entirety.” In addition to reminding us of the days of the week, and the month of the year, Kaspersky’s calendar brings us closer to moments of cyber-history that largely remain untold, bringing us closer to the cyber world one day at a time. Scroll below to read more!

Designer: Kaspersky

Each month of Kapersky’s calendar offers a historical fact relating to the cyberworld.

“The first spread computer virus was [called] the ‘Brain.'”

“HTTP works with three-digit status codes. Status 404 is an answer to a client’s request, signifying that the page is not found. We only see the status ‘404’ because for a normal webpage, the status is 200 OK. We don’t see [‘200 OK’] because the server proceeds to send the contents of the page.”

“Only 10% of the world’s currency exists physically, the rest is a mere set of zeroes and ones. That percentage [is] lowering swiftly because of online payments and plastic cards.”

“In 1980…Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony …[was] fit onto a CD in its entirety. That was the final argument about CD’s volume.”