Most of us swap disks with friends and browse the Net looking for downloads. Rarely do we ever consider that we are also exchanging files with anyone and everyone who has ever handled them in the past. If that sounds like a warning about social diseases, its right along the same lines. Computer viruses are every bit as harmful and destructive, and come in a vast variety of types and strains. Computer viruses, can tear up your hard drive and bring down your system. However, unlike social diseases, computer viruses are almost always curable, and the cures for new strains are usually a matter of days away, rather than months or years.
A computer virus is a program designed to replicate and spread, generally with the victim being oblivious to its existence. Computer viruses spread by attaching themselves to other programs such as word processors or spreadsheets, or to the boot sector of the disk. When an infected file is activated, or when the computer is started from an infected disk, the virus itself is also activated. Many times a virus will lurk in a computers memory, waiting to infect the next program or disk that is activated.
What makes viruses so dangerous is their ability to perform an event. While some events are harmless like displaying a message on a certain date, and others annoying, like slowing performance or altering the screen display, some viruses can be disastrous by damaging files, and destroying data.
Most viruses are created out of curiosity. There are those out there who create them out of malice, but far more of the creators are just meeting a challenge, to see if they can do it or not. A common type of virus would be a Trojan Horse, a destructive program disguised as a game, a utility, or an application. When run a Trojan Horse does something harmful to the computer system, while appearing to do something useful. A worm is also a popular type of virus. A worm is a program that spreads itself across computers, usually by spawning copies of itself in each computer’s memory. A worm might duplicate itself in one computers memory so often that it causes the computer to crash. A worm is introduced secretly into a host system either for fun, or with the intent to damage or destroy information. Now I will explain some of the more major viruses, and how they function.
...virus that spreads easily is a combination that nobody wants. Everyone should care about this message in the book, because they could possibly come in contact with this virus one day.
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.
...come a virus that consumes its host, ultimately leading to its own demise in the process.
A computer virus is designed to self-replicate, self-install, and attack the root functions and system of different programs without authorization or the user’s knowledge. Virusesmainly affect the root of a computer system.Virus can destroy and damage most important part of our hard drive, the boot sector, where information about all files has been stored. Viruses may alter directory paths and may change
Viruses can do many different things to a body, they can destroy, corrupt, and take over cells in the body. They can damage parts of the body or make your body destroy itself, viruses are dangerous but sometimes can be cured. Viruses do not have the enzymes needed to carry out life so they use other’s cells, called a host cell, to live and to perform their functions, such as reproduction. Viruses inject their genetic instructions into a cell causing the cell to create viruses materials, which become new viruses, and usually break the side of the cell destroying it. The viruses can cause parts of the brain to react and activate, causing behavioral changes. For example a disease called Toxoplasmosis can alter rat behavior, while it affects humans in a different way than rats, its an example of what viruses can do. The virus switches the triggers that causes neuronal reactions for fear and arousal, so that what causes fear actually cuses arousal. This is so that the rat gets eaten by a cat and a parasite (which injects the virus) inside the rat can reproduce in a cat. A virus doesn’t simply just head to the brain to cause these things, as there is a “shield” around the brain that protects it from everything. This “shield” is called the Blood Brain Barrier, the BBB, which molecul...
In 1998, Chernobyl virus affects computers that are running Windows; it is one of the most viruses destructive, written by Taiwan's "Shan Ling is", the name "Chernobyl" in relation to "an incident Chernobyl" that took place in Ukraine in 1986 because of an explosion at a nuclear reactor. Chernobyl virus scans the boot drive to become the device is unable to load. At the same time it is trying to clear the BIOS," the basic Input/output System instructions that tell the computer to start", which often being protected from writing, so the people who are infected with this virus; they changed their device or rather change the motherboard of a computer. (BBC News, 1999)
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
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.
Malware, which is short for malicious software, nowadays is a term used for software that may harm your computer. People often use malware and viruses interchangeably, but they are not the same thing. Viruses are a form of malware. There are many forms of malware, but the most common types are viruses, worms, spyware, rootkits, and trojans.
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.
Mistakes are often made when people believe their computers have been attacked by a virus, when in reality it is often spyware. A computer virus is a piece of code designed to replicate itself as many times as possible, spreading from one host computer to any other computers connected to it. It can damage your personal files and sometimes even the operating system. The damage spyware inflicts is actually more of a by-product of its real mission, which is to serve users targeted advertisements and/or make your browser display sites or search results.
Some malicious viruses corrupt files, impair important hardware, or collect personal data such as passwords and credit card numbers (“What Do Computer Viruses Do”). Viruses can also modify existing files stored on your computer. They don’t delete the files, but instead, they unnoticeably change parts of the code for files which yields them unusable (“List of the Effects of Computer Viruses.”). These viruses multiply within the circuitry of a computer, spreading from file to file. (“Effects of Computer Virus”). Even worse than corrupting files, some viruses completely take over your computer. You will have no control over your computer, and it will most likely cost money to remove the virus (“What Do Computer Viruses Do”). Viruses, benign or malicious, can corrupt files or hinder your computer useless, and they are usually costly to
Malicious software, or simply malware, can be described as software that a computer user never authorized to be loaded. This means that the software can be found on user’s computer without his or her knowledge. Furthermore, a malware can be described as software that collects private information from any computer without user’s knowledge and authorization. As the name suggests, this software is malicious and can do great damage to a computer, mobile device, or other related devices. This damage can range from something as slight as altering the author’s name on a document to massive damage like making an entire device fail to function properly (Töyssy and Marko 109). The good news is that malwares can be controlled or prevented. As a matter of fact, it does not cost a fortune to keep a device safe from malware attacks. It also needs enough knowledge about them. In order to be able to do this, however, it is important to understand the various terminologies used to describe malicious software.
Malware can survive in a number of ways say different sizes, shapes and also the purpose ranging from viruses to spyware and to bots. Malware in general is classified into two types. They are the concealing malware and infectious malware. In case of infectious malware, the malware code is said to spread all over which means that the software code shall replicate from one user to another and this goes on. In infectious malware, we need to consider two cases, which are called the viruses and the worms. Viruses are termed as the software that has executables within itself and causes the executables to spread when it is run. The second case called worms is a software which infects a computer and then spreads to others.