We trust our computers with everything. We house important information on them, and blindly believe that we are safe. We are so reliant on them that we cannot operate our day to day lives without them. It is terrifying to think that with a few simple lines of code, anyone can create a virus capable of erasing our entire digital lives. It is critical to understand how viruses work to be better protected against them.
Similar to its biological namesake, a virus is a small program designed to harm a computer. A virus is a type of malware program. This means it is a software program used to disrupt computer operations, gather sensitive information, or gain access to private computer systems (Microsoft). Viruses can generally spread by themselves. They are designed to install themselves and then self-replicate without any user input. When a virus replicates itself, it inserts the copies into computer programs and files. These programs and files are said to be “infected”. The symptoms of a virus can range from the computer slowing down to a complete system failure. Most viruses often perform some type of harmful activity on infected hosts, such as occupying hard disk space, slowing down the central processing unit, deleting files, accessing private information, corrupting data, or spamming their contacts (Brainpop). Viruses can’t create themselves. They must be written and tested to make sure they spread properly. People create viruses for many reasons. Some viruses are created just out of curiosity. They may have no harmful effect and are just made for educational purposes. Some people create them for thrills. They enjoy watching their virus wreak havoc on their victim’s computer. Another reason is for the hacker to make money. Trojans...
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...hee drawback to using a firewall is that a user cannot scan programs and files for malicious software. Also, there are rarely updates for firewalls to protect against new and more complex viruses since antivirus software is the recommended protection method.
Viruses are simple yet deadly. They disguise themselves and spread without any instructions. They can send themselves through e-mail or travel over a shared internet connection. They are hidden from their victims as they slowly eat away at their computers. They are capable of compromising entire computer networks. With all our personal information saved on computers it is vital that we keep it safe. Antivirus software is a marvelous tool that should be installed on every computer. Viruses can be destructive but if we are able to understand how they work, we will be better able to protect ourselves from them.
Viral infections are caused by different kinds of viruses. They have a simple structure and are tinier than bacteria by a landslide. Viruses can only survive in a host, and are unable to reproduce by themselves, instead they use the host’s DNA to multiply and repair. Most viruses are harmful to the human body and cause disease. They direct themselves to infect the cells in the liver, respiratory system, and blood. Which cause diseases like the flu, chickenpox, Aids, herpes, etcetera. Viruses are also involved in many forms of cancer. They
Malware, short for malicious software, is wide-spread in today’s computer market. Malware is software intended to gain sensitive information or access to a victim’s private system (“Who Creates Malware and Why?” par. 13). Many forms of malware exist: the major categories including viruses, ransom ware, worms, keyloggers, trojan horses and rootkits. Today, malware is most commonly used to steal victims’ personal information for financial gains, but malwares’ attention was not always this way. The first computer worms were written as harmless pranks.
Malware could be defined as several different objects such as worms, viruses, Trojans, or blended, so I’m going to compare malware to a car manufacturer. There are countless models that a car manufacturer makes, so it would be difficult to distinctly describe, Ford as solely a truck or sedan company. We know manufactures make several types of different vehicles. Let’s get back to malware and let me give you an example.
You know they're right. Yet for one reason or another, you're not running antivirus software, or you are but it's not up to date. Maybe you turned off your virus scanner because it conflicted with another program. Maybe you got tired of upgrading after you bought Norton Antivirus 2001, 2002, and 2003. Or maybe your annual subscription of virus definitions recently expired, and you've put off renewing.
A hardware firewall is used most often when multiple devices on a network need to be protected by a firewall. Hardware firewalls are a necessity if you need to have a centralized point for protection and easy management of the firewall. You can purchase hardware firewalls as just a physical device or as part of broadband router that already has the firewall built into it. Hardware firewalls can be some-what effective with very little, and sometimes no, effort on the users part in terms of actually configuring the device. Most hardware firewalls come already set with predefined rules on what is ok to pass through onto the network and what is not ok to pass through onto the network. Almost any computer user can plug in a hardware firewall, adjust a few settings and be on their merry way. But being how this device is made to protect your computer(s), your network, and possibly your assets, it would behoove you to learn the specific features of the firewall, what it allows and what it doesn’t allow, and how to enable and disable those features. Once you know how everything works you should test your firewall for optimal security and protection. Firewalls are not all created equally so it is important that your read all documentation that came with the device and go over the manual to get a full understanding of what exactly you have gotten yourself into. Your hardware firewall should always sit on the outermost portion of your logical network. This is known as the perimeter of ...
I decided to read the book by David Harley called Viruses Revealed. This book goes into great detail about the different kinds of viruses and virus mechanisms, the solutions to these viruses, studies on different cases of viruses and then the social aspects of viruses. In the first part of the book, Harley talks about the problems with viruses. A virus is a program that infects other programs to modify them. “Infecting means that a virus will insert itself into the chain of command” (Harley). The virus structure was defined into three different parts: Infection, Payload, and Trigger. The infection is defined as the way or ways in which the virus spreads. The payload is defined as what the virus does besides duplicating itself. Trigger is defined as the procedure that decides whether or not the payload is necessary. Harley also talks about the difference between damage versus infection. The major difference between the two is that many users have infected documents or applications on their computer. Whether or not those applications are run is the difference between the two. In part one Harley also converses about Trojan Horses. Trojan horses are normally known as a virus, but he shoots that down. Harley says that Trojan Horses are normally not viruses, but just a worm that goes from computer to computer. After talking about different kinds of viruses and worms, he goes into Anti-Virus softwares. There are two different kinds of anti-viruses. One being virus-specific. Virus-specific means that every time a virus is found on your computer, it is identified but not detected. Generic scanners do the opposite. Generic scanners detect viruses but do not identify them.
Why do people create computer viruses? Why they benefit from it? It is like asking why do people commit crimes? (Why People Create Computer). In the 20th century at the beginning of early computer viruses. They were for experiments, annoyance, and testing. They do not really harm computer systems or computers back then. In the 21st century computer viruses, are changing. They are becoming smarter and more destructive rarely without annoyance but they serve a purpose to cause some harm to a computer or computer systems (Benford).
The virus is defined as a piece of code that can copy itself and typically has a detrimental effect, such as corrupting the system or destroying data. At that time viruses were not known to be used to attack countries, most viruses were motivated by money and moral beliefs. In the early 2000s Iran was gaining nuclear power and the U.S. knew they were in the wrong hands. As the rise of viruses grew the CIA knew they could take advantage of cyber-attacks. Couple years later they had a lethal virus capable of damaging uranium plants all over Iran.
Firstly to explain malware, malware is any form of software which is designed with a malicious purpose in mind. There are three main forms of malware, as mentioned before there are viruses, the next is a Trojan horse, and finally there are worms. Worms and viruses are quite similar and also usually designed with similar intentions. However there are a few subtle differences between the two which will be covered below
“ Prevention is better than cure ”, if computer users are aware of Malware attacks, they may prevent those attacks . So, in this research paper i am going to focus on Malware and Protecting Against Malware.
Virus can effect the system. They are pieces of codes created by hacker to create a nuisances and to another extreme corrupt valuable data. Examples of these can be animated icons flying pass the computer screen and to another extreme can be programmes designed to delete the hard drive. The Computer Virus can be caught through a number of ways. The most highly publicised way, is through the Internet, other ways are through removable storage media, such as floppy disks and zip drives. They can also be caught through computer networks, where a third party from another machine in the network introduces the virus (accidental or otherwise) which then spread throughout the network. The most unlikely way of virus contaminating the system is through malicious employees creating them on the system but this will be discussed later on. There are a number of precautions that can be taken to help prevent this. By simply making employees not to use mobile storage media unless they know where it has been, making them aware that pirated media , shareware/freeware programmes may be potentially dangerous. A talk and leaflet distribution to employees could be useful. If the Alsager decides to connect to the Internet, this would be another potential source for virus and such like. A firewall could be placed on the system to help prevent infection. A more immediate way of preventing virus is to subscribe to a antivirus programmes, although this will not give you 100% percent protection it will help prevent the majority of known virus. An important note to this point, is the importance of getting regular virus updates from the software manufacturer.
Malicious code is a real danger to modern systems. Most systems nowadays do not work in isolation; they are more likely to be connected to other systems and sometimes they can even be dependent on them. Therefore an attack on one of the systems in the network is a potential attacking attempt to any other systems, with which it is interacting. Therefore, it is inevitable for any networked or Internet-connected computers to deal with malicious code attacks at some point. Businesses lose billions of dollars each year because of malicious code attacks. Responding to the attack and restoring all the data on the computers is a time-consuming and expensive task. It is a much better practice to try preventing it through organizing and maintaining effective defenses. However, it is important to keep in mind that there is no one general solution that can help to prevent all the attacks. Attackers are constantly looking for new ways to take advantage of systems’ vulnerabilities and find new ones. That’s why organizations have to not only defend themselves against existing attack methods, but also try to predict and prevent new attacking techniques. It means that computer and network security is a never-ending challenge and expense.
Virus is one of the most common malware. Unlike spyware, virus is largely designed to harm useful programs or wreck down an entire operating system. There are many ways through which virus may enter a computer. The most common way is via email attachments. A...
What is the “MALWARE”? A malware refers to software programs designed to damage or do other unwanted actions on a computer system. In Spanish, "mal" is a prefix that means "bad," making the term "bad ware" .Malware includes viruses, worms, Trojan horses, and spyware. Viruses, for example, can cause havoc on a computer's hard drive by deleting files or directory information. Spyware can gather data from a user's system without the user knowing it. This can include anything from the Web pages a user visits to personal information, such as credit card numbers.
In today’s days malware is designated as a software which aims to disturb a computer with the consent or permission of the owner. This term “Malware” is used by computer professionals to describe a varied forms of destructive, annoying and intrusive software code. This word “Malware” is used to indicate all types of malware which include a true set of viruses.