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Victory
over Viruses and Worms:
First, let's clear-up some misconceptions
about computer viruses. Computer viruses were at one time very
rare. Although you should be cautious and aware of viruses, they are
no reason not to surf the Web. The vast majority of viruses are actually
fake, or phreaks, so named because their sole intend is to
phreak you out, and do no actual harm to your system at all
outside of ocupying hard disk space. Somewhat of a computing practical
joke.
Worms are so named becuase their whole
lot in life is to get into and from any possible place and area it
can. Worms seek out unprotected areas and find ways to propagate (make
babies). The contemporary worm comes on an email and immediately when
viewed tries to attach to your email address book and send itself
to your friends.
Urban legends
run more rampant than the viruses themselves. Email chain letters
start flowing warning of threats and new viruses producing hoaxes
such as the Good Times virus, and PC'ers favorite babble is about
how they rid their system from Monkey B!
Fact: You can get a virus by viewing a Web page or reading
email!
There are those viruses, however, that are designed with the intend to cause a great deal of harm to a computer system.
Once your system is infected, a virus might
delete files, rewrite your hard disk partition tables (which sometimes
requires a full format to correct), trash memory, lock up the
computer, slow down your computer, or do a variety of other things.
Not only that, but the virus might be programmed to do only certain
things at random times, so as to not attract suspicion.
So how do you contract a virus? A virus is a program and it has to find
a way to get in to your system. The most common type of virus is know
as a trojan horse, aptly named as it hides or disguises itself
as another application, or it can be attached as a few extra bits on
an image. Some may also be received via email as a file attached with
the user downloading it unaware of what it is. Once in your system,
the virus has to be executed where it self installs and sets about reaping
its havoc.
Viruses can effect your system in different ways depended on the type it is, a Boot Sector Virus, a File Infected Virus or a Partition Table Virus.
Boot Sector Viruses: These types of viruses spread whenever
you boot your computer. If you boot from an infected floppy, the
virus tries to install itself on your hard drive. Then whenever
you boot from your hard drive, the virus tries to install itself
on any unprotected floppy disks. From this you can see how easy
it is for a virus to spread, and therefore, how important it is
to keep floppies write-protected whenever possible.
File Infected Viruses: These viruses attach themselves to
executable programs. Once you execute the infected file, the virus
copies itself to computer memory and then tries to attach itself
to any executable files it can find.
Partition Table Viruses: When a PC is turned on and boots
from an infected hard disk, the virus is copied to that PC's RAM.
From there, it infects the boot sector of any floppy disks you use
that aren't write-protected.
With the advent of highspeed broadband
and cable modem connections Trojan Horse and worms have proliferated.
With 24 hour connections to generally unguarded PCs, hackers (that
kid down the road that never comes outside to play) have a wide open
forum of toys. Typically, you will receive an email (could be from
an already infected friends computer), click the attached file, and
nothing happens...that you see.
What has happened is that in less than
the blink of an eye the program has installed a worm for propagation
that has gotten to your address book and most insidiously, installed
a little background program that tells the hacker "I'm here and
ready" each time you are connected to the Internet. At some point
in time the hacker will then "recruit" all the computers
(500 or more) and tells your computer to do some mischief or something
really bad to some other big computers. Kind of like the mob storming
the Bastile.
Protecting
your System:
Just like any virus, the key here is to use good protection! Prevention
is always better than cure:
- Purchase a good virus protection program. These will constantly
scan your system alerting you of any threats, then clean and remove
any infected files. Most of the major manufactures offer excellent
programs such as McAffee, Norton. PCcillin.
- Ok hands up! Who has a virus scanner and not updated it? New viruses
are continuously hitting the scene, and unless you update your virus
scanner it will be useless. Follow the software's instructions
on updating, this is usually free and completed over the Internet.
- Only download files from a reputable source. Scan it before executing.
- Be cautious of software purchased from flea markets, etc. and
avoid pirated software copies.
- If you have a constant connection, get a Firewall. This
will help keep the bad guys out once you get rid of them, or at
least make it so that they can't talk to your computer.
The end result here is that computer viruses do exist, and can do harm to a system.
However, by purchasing a relatively inexpensive virus protection program
you will remain very safe, keep the software updated and don't let the
virus threat stop you from enjoying the World Wide Web!
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