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COMPUTER VIRUSES

A virus is a parasitic program that infects another legitimate program, which is sometimes called the host. To infect the host program, the virus modifies the host to store a copy of the virus. Many viruses are programmed to do harm once they infect the victims system (as you will see later, a virus can do various kinds of damage), but the ability to do damage is not what defines a virus. To qualify as a virus, a program must to be able to replicate (make copies of) itself. This can mean copying itself to different places on the same computer or looking for ways to reach other computers, such as by infecting disks or traveling across networks. Viruses can be programmed to replicate and travel in many ways. The majority of computer viruses are relatively harmless; their purpose is to annoy their victims rather than to cause specific damage. Such viruses are described as benign. Other viruses are indeed malicious, and they can do great damage to a computer system if permitted to run.

Categories of Viruses:
Depending on your source of information, different types of viruses may be described in slightly different ways. Some specific categories of viruses include the following. Boot Sector Viruses: Regarded as one of the most hostile types of virus, a boot sector virus infects the boot record of a hard or floppy disk. (A boot sector is a special area of a disk that stores essential files the computer accesses during start-up). The virus moves the boot sectors data to a different part of the disk. When the computer is started, the virus copies itself into memory where it can hide and infect other disks. The virus allows the actual boot sector data to be read as though a normal start-up were occurring. Cluster viruses: This type of virus makes changes to a disks file system. If any program is run from the infected disk, the program causes the virus also to run. This technique creates the illusion that the virus infected every program on the disk. File-Infecting Viruses: This type of virus infects program files on a disk (such as EXE or COM files). When an infected program is launched, the virus code is also executed. Worms: A worm is a program whose purpose is to duplicate itself an effective worm will fill entire disk with copies of itself, and it can spread to multiple computers on a network essentially clogging the entire system with copies. Warms are commonly spread over the Internet via e-mail message attachments and Internet Relay Chat (IRC). BOMBS: This type of virus hides on the users disk and waits for a specific event to occur before running. Some bombs are activated by a data, a change to a file, or a particular action taken by a user or a program. Trojan Horses: A Trojan horses is a malicious program that appears to be friendly. For example some Trojan horses appear to be games. Because Trojan horses do not make duplicates of themselves on the victims disks (or copy themselves to other disks) , they are not technically viruses. Bu, because they can do harm, they are considered viruses.

Polymorphic, Self-Garbling, Self-Encrypting or Self-Changing Viruses:


This type of virus can change itself each time it is copied, making it difficult to isolate.

Stealth Viruses: These viruses take up residence in the computers memory, making
them hard to detect. They can also conceal changes they make to other files, hiding the damage from the user and the operation system. Macro Viruses: A macro virus is designed to infect a specific type of document file, such as Microsoft word or excel files. These types of documents can include macros, which are small programs that execute commands. (Macros are typically used to issue program-specific commands but they can also issue certain os-level commands). A macro virus disguised as a macro, is embedded in a document fie and can do various levels of damage to data, from corrupting documents to deleting data. Joke Programs: Joke programs are not viruses and do inflict any damage. Their purpose is to frighten their victims into thinking that virus has infected and damaged their system. For example, a joke program may display a message that says the computers hard disk is being reformatted. Bimodal, Bipartite, or Multipartite Viruses: This type of virus can infect both files and the boot record of a disk. A new variety of a virus, called e-mail viruses, does not necessarily require a host program to infect a computer; some e-mail viruses are transmitted as an infected attachment a document file of some type that is attached to the e-mail message. Others can be carried within the body of certain types of e-mail message. Viruses can be programmed to do many kinds of harm, including the following: Copy themselves to other program or areas of a disk. Display information on the screen. Destroy data files. Erase the contents of an entire disk. Life dormant for a specified time or until a given condition is met and then become active. Oren a back door to your computer. Which allows someone else to access and even take control of the system via an Internet connection. Viruses may seem like major problems for individual computer users. For corporations however viruses can be devastating in terms of lost data and productivity. U.S companies lose billions of dollars a year to damage caused by viruses. Most of the expenses come from the time end effort required it locate and remove viruses, restore systems rebuild lost or corrupted data and ensure against future attacks.

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