Book Review Of David Harley's Viruses Revealed?

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.

In chapter two, Harley talks about the history of the virus. Some p...

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...ies on other programs for it to continue to spread and often times the same program can be hit by the same virus several times. Cracking these codes and viruses is much harder to figure out. It’s almost like these virus writers make it a puzzle to solve before you can actually disband the virus itself. Even when the code is cracked and disassembled, writers normally just rewrite that code to do the exact same thing again.

To stay safe from many different forms of viruses, the best way to go is to download a couple different kinds of anti-virus programs. Harley says it is almost impossible to get through three different anti-virus programs. He also says that it is easily solved when it comes to Trojans, worms, viruses, and malware. If you do not grant access to unidentified or unsafe programs, then it is very hard for viruses to be granted access onto your computer.