True Myths About Computer Viruses

One of the main reasons viruses have become such a threat to today's computer systems is the fact that modern viruses are different in almost every way from what they were in the past. But most computer users are aware of these changes and their idea of enough protection against viruses, worms, and Trojan horses it is still less than what is necessary. Some myths have turned into real situations as time passed by.

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Symptoms of a Rootkit

Rootkit

A Rootkit may be composed of one program or a combination of malicious programs that are designed to take control of your computer. Basically, a rootkit will allow hackers or outside attackers have root access to an infected computer. They can virtually act as an administrator and have access to your system without your permission.

Rootkits were originally legitimate programs that gave a user or administrator control to fix issues on an unresponsive computer. Nowadays, hackers have used this type of technology for malicious purposes at the expense of computer users, who often times are unaware that they’ve been infected with a rootkit.

 

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20th Century's Most Dangerous Infections

Viruses saw light and managed to cause serious damages to unprepared users and their machines. Millions of users downloaded computer viruses without even knowing about it. Hackers used various ways of penetrating the systems of universities from around the world, even NASA, armed Forces and Government Sites.It shows the increased level of mastery in writing virus programs, malware or hacking methods.


Jerusalem
The virus was named Jerusalem because it was identified in a Hebrew university. For the first time it was discovered in 1987 on October 1, but in 1991 antivirus experts found that Italy is the country where the first traces of the computer virus were noticed. Initially the Jerusalem virus included a bug that led to a repeat infection of the files that continued until the size of the files overcome computer resources. In addition, each Friday 13 it deleted all programs in the infected system as a result of a malicious payload that set off on the respective day. Jerusalem considerably slowed down the machine. A person could identify the virus but noticing two lines on the monitor.

 


Morris or  Internet Worm:
We wrote about this computer worm, which is believed to be one of the first worms that spread over the Internet. The name of the virus comes from its developer Robert Tappan Morris, who was a student at Cornell University. The computer worm was set off on November 2, 1988 and after some time it managed to infect 6,000 to 9,000 machines. It overloaded the whole Internet, leading to the failure of a large number of servers. According to its developer, the goal was to discover just how far and fast a computer worm can spread all over the network. Robert Tappan Morris was found guilty and sentenced to 3 years of probation along with 400 hours of community service. In addition, he had to pay a $10,000 fine.

CIH or Chernobyl:

CIH virus that caused an estimated damage of $20 to $80 million around the globe, the computer virus managed to affect huge amounts of data stored on computers. Later it was discovered that the computer virus was launched in Taiwan. It has been recognized to be one of the most dangerous computer viruses in history that has infected Windows 95, 98, and ME executable files. In addition, CIH remained resident in the memory of the machine, being able to carry on infecting other executables. After being activated, the virus overwrote data on the HDD of the infected PC, making the latter inoperable. CIH could also overwrite the BIOS of the infected computer, thus preventing boot-up. The second name of the virus - Chernobyl - was given because some of the biggest damages occurred on the day when the nuclear reactor exploded.

Solar Sunrise :
It is the name of the situation that occurred in 1998 when a team of hackers managed to take control of more than 500 computer system of the army, government as well as private sector of the United States. The name Solar Sunrise comes after the well-known vulnerabilities in machines that run on the Sun Solaris OS. At first the attack was believed to have been organized by hackers from Iraq, but later it was discovered that the ones to blame were two American youngsters from California.


Barrotes - 1993:
This is believed to be the first popular computer virus developed in Spain. As soon as it infected the system, it would remain there until January the 5th, when it would set off showing a series of bars on the screen. It infected .COM, .EXE and overlay files. The Barrotes computer virus represents a resident virus - it becomes a resident of the computer memory each time the machine starts up. Due to a series of vertical lines that appear on the monitor, it was easy to identify the virus. It could also overwrite the Master Boot Record of the HDD, thus making it impossible for the uses to access the hard disk.

There are many more viruses that are dangerous and damages the system very badly. We need to get a good anti-virus that has good search engine and which updates regularly and protects our computer.

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Dangerous Things On Web

There are list of topics that will download viruses without our knowledge.There are list of threats or dangerous places by going where you may download unwanted infections.

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Identifying Virus, Worm and Trojan -Symptoms

A Computer Virus can attack a PC in many number of ways; email attachments, clicking on links, pen drives, from network computers. Symptoms or identifying a virus infection will be based on many things and the main identifiers are listed below:

• The computer crashes, and then it restarts every few minutes in the middle of something.
• The computer restarts on its own.
• Applications on the computer do not work correctly.
• Disks or disk drives are inaccessible.
• You cannot print items correctly.
• You see distorted menus and dialog boxes.
• There is a double extension on an attachment that you recently opened, such as a .jpg, .vbs, .gif, or .exe. extension.
• An antivirus program is disabled for no reason and cannot be restarted.
• An antivirus program cannot be installed on the computer, or the antivirus program will not run.
• New icons appear on the desktop that you did not put there, or the icons are not associated with any recently installed programs.
• A program disappears from the computer even though you did not intentionally remove the program.

Symptoms of worms and trojan horse viruses in e-mail messages:

When a computer virus infects e-mail messages or infects other files on a computer, you may notice the following symptoms:

• The infected file may make copies of itself. This behavior may use up all the free space on the hard disk.
• A copy of the infected file may be sent to all the addresses in an e-mail address list.
• The computer virus may reformat the hard disk which will delete all files and programs.
• The computer virus may install hidden programs, such as pirated software that will deactivate the original version and sells the same pirated version.
• The computer virus may reduce security. This could enable intruders to remotely access the computer or the network.
• You receive an e-mail message that has a strange attachment. When you open the attachment, dialog boxes appear, or a sudden degradation in system performance occurs.
• Someone tells you that they have recently received e-mail messages from you that contained attached files that you did not send. The files that are attached to the e-mail messages have extensions such as .exe, .bat, .scr, and .vbs extensions.

 

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Virus and Its Properties

A computer virus is a small software program that spreads from one computer to another computer and that interferes with computer operation.Viruses can spread from one system to another system on a network. Computer viruses are most easily spread by attachments in e-mail messages or by instant messaging messages. Therefore, you must never open an e-mail attachment unless you know who sent the message or unless you are expecting the e-mail attachment. Computer viruses also spread by using downloads on the Internet. Computer viruses can be hidden in pirated software or in other files or programs that you may download. A true virus can spread from one computer to another, when its host is taken to the target computer. They are platform independent which means it can affect any operating system depending on its programming function. They can even disable or destroy hardware.

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WORM_DOWNAD.KK

This is the latest variant of Worm_Downad.It exploits software vulnerabilities to propagate to other computers across a network. This Worm may be downloaded by other malware/grayware/spyware from remote sites. It may be dropped by other malware. It may be unknowingly downloaded by a user while visiting malicious websites.

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