Computer Viruses

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A computer virus program is altering program and it replicated itself by coping itself into other programs stored in a computer. The word "virus" is also commonly used broadly to include computer viruses, worms, and Trojan horse programs. For example, so-called "anti-virus software" will remove all three classes of these malicious programs. The first virus was born in the very beginning of 1970’s or even in the end of 1960’s although nobody was calling it a virus back then. Pervading animal and Christmas tree were the first. Virus started infecting files. However today virus has multiplied and mostly all are alike in a sense. They periodically kill files or ruin them in which a person will not be able to locate or ever used them again. According to Device Daily.com, in November 1983, a university of southern California graduate Fred Cohen demonstrated a computer virus doing a seminar at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. Cohen inserted his concept code into a UNIX command, and within five minutes into the system Cohen was able to gain control of the whole mainframe computer. In His other demonstration, Cohen code managed to evade all the security measures that were installed in the mainframe computer at that time. The code toke approximately an half an hour on a normal. In those years, is only referred to as a code, it is Cohen’s professor, Land Adlemar, who coined the term virus for the self replication program. The Melissa virus in 1992 was the first fast moving virus that reached about 250, 000, computers, Virus and other forms of worms have been rampant in the internet. The motives of its creators have become diverse as well from hacking to stealing internet identities. But luckily, we have also developed new ki... ... middle of paper ... ...ones homes or anyone ever notice. Nevertheless it is very hard to justify punishment of criminals that commit computer, being that it is very hard to detect. While severe punishment may not deter criminal conduct, punishment does express the outrage of decent society at criminal conduct. (www.rbs2.com/ccrime.htm) (Ronald B. Standler). There are no, reliable statistics on the amount of computer crime and the economic loss to victims, partly because many of these crimes are apparently not detected by victims, many of these crimes are never reported to authorities, and partly because the losses are often difficult to calculate. Nevertheless, there is a consensus among both law enforcement personnel and computer scientists who specialize in security that both the number of computer crime incidents and the sophistication of computer criminals are increasing rapidly.

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