Virus and Anti-virus
The last decade has witnessed the dramatic emergence of the Internet as a force of inter-organizational and inter-personal change. But, the main problem which mostly penetrates through the internet to all domestic PC’s is the Viruses. Viruses represent a serious threat to corporate profitability and performance, and accordingly, this constant threat of viruses has pushed security to the top of the list of key issues. Computer virus attacks cost global businesses an estimated $55 billion in damages through out a year says a report.
What is a Virus?
A virus is a piece of programming code usually disguised as something else that causes some unexpected and usually undesirable event. Since the early 1990s, computer viruses have appeared in the world of IT and become more changeable and destructive in recent years. As today’s computers are far faster, and as the vulnerabilities of the globally connected Internet are being exploited.
Today’s hackers can also easily manipulate existing viruses so that the resulting code might be undetectable by antivirus application; they may even insert malicious code into files with no discernable trace to be found, regardless of digital forensics examiner’s competence and equipment. Viruses, unlike worms, must attach themselves to another file (typically an executable program file, but can infect dozens of file types, including scripts and data files with embedded macros) in order to propagate. When the host file is executed, the virus’s programming is also executed in the background.
How do they spread?
Viruses are often designed so that they can automatically spread to other computer users by various media channels and various methods. Viruses may be transmitted as e-mail attachments, downloaded files, or background scripts, or may be embedded in the boot sector or other files on a diskette or CD. Viruses are usually executed without the computer user’s knowledge or choice in the initial stages.
Detecting Viruses:
Due to their varied nature and constant sophisticated evolution, today’s viruses are harder to detect and remove. Firewalls can filter a limited number of damages, but they cannot completely eliminate all types of viruses. Also, watching an application with networking monitoring tools, such as Windows Task Manager and Firewall software, can indicate a lot about the traffic going on in the network. Normally, any unexpected behavior from an application can mirror a sign of a virus or worm at work.
Symptoms of virus attack:
- For instance, a computer may slow down, stop responding, or crash and restart every few minutes.
- Sometimes a virus will attack the files we need to start up a computer.
- When there is anomalous application behavior, such as sudden enormous outward and inward data flow, it is a sign that a virus/worm is propagating.
Want to know the top ten viruses from 2000 to 2008? Visit again…
