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Computer Virus

This document discusses computer viruses and worms. It defines viruses and worms, and explains how they differ and how they spread. Specifically, it covers the Melissa virus from 1999, the I Love You virus from 2000, and the Code Red worm from 2001. It describes the types of viruses and symptoms of an infection. The document concludes by recommending protection measures like using antivirus software, firewalls, and backups.

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Avneet Kaur
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2K views24 pages

Computer Virus

This document discusses computer viruses and worms. It defines viruses and worms, and explains how they differ and how they spread. Specifically, it covers the Melissa virus from 1999, the I Love You virus from 2000, and the Code Red worm from 2001. It describes the types of viruses and symptoms of an infection. The document concludes by recommending protection measures like using antivirus software, firewalls, and backups.

Uploaded by

Avneet Kaur
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Computer Viruses and Worms

By: Monika Gupta

Overview
TYPES OF INFECTION DEFINITIONS DIFFERENCE BETWEEN VIRUS AND WORM ORIGINS TYPES OF VIRUSES WORMS

Overview Cont
MELISSA VIRUS I LOVE YOU VIRUS CODE RED (WORM) SYMPTOMS OF AN INFECTION PROTECTION MEASURES CONCLUSION REFRENCES

Types of Infection
VIRUSES E-MAIL VIRUSES WORMS TROJAN HORSES

Viruses
A virus is a small piece of software that piggybacks on real programs. 2 main characteristics of viruses
It must execute itself. It must replicate itself.

Virus
Virus might attach itself to a program such as spreadsheet. Each time the spreadsheet program runs, the virus runs too and replicate itself.

E-mail Viruses
Moves around in e-mail messages Usually replicate itself by automatically mailing itself to dozens of people in the victims email address book. Example MELISSA VIRUS Example I LOVE YOU VIRUS

WORMS
Small piece of software that uses computer networks and security holes to replicate itself. Copy of the worm scans the network for another machine that has a specific security hole. Copy itself to the new machine using the security hole and start replicating. Example CODE RED

Trojan Horses
A simple computer program It claim to be a game Erase your hard disk No way to replicate itself.

Difference between Virus and Worm


The difference between a worm and a virus is that a virus does not have a propagation vector. i.e., it will only effect one host and does not propagate to other hosts. Worms propagate and infect other computers. Majority of threats are actually worms that propagate to other hosts.

Why do people do it ?
For some people creating viruses seems to be thrill. Thrill of watching things blow up.

Viruses
Viruses show us how vulnerable we are A properly engineered virus can have an amazing effect on the Internet They show how sophisticated and interconnected human beings have become.

Types of Viruses
File infector virus
Infect program files

Boot sector virus


Infect the system area of a disk

Master boot record virus


infect disks in the same manner as boot sector viruses. The difference between these two virus types is where the viral code is located.

Multi-partite virus
infect both boot records and program files

Macro virus
infect data files. Examples: Microsoft Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access files

Melissa Virus (March 1999)


Melissa virus spread in Microsoft Word documents sent via e-mail. How it works ? Created the virus as word document Uploaded to an internet newsgroup Anyone who download the document and opened it would trigger the virus. Send friendly email messages to first 50 people in persons address book.

Melissa Virus
Melissa Virus was the fastest spreading virus ever seen. Forced a number of large companies to shut down their e-mail systems.

I Love You Virus (May,2000)


Contained a piece of code as an attachment. Double Click on the attachment triggered the code. Sent copies of itself to everyone in the victims address book Started corrupting files on the victims machine.

Code Red (Worm)


Code Red made huge headlines in 2001 It slowed down internet traffic when it began to replicate itself. Each copy of the worm scanned the internet for Windows NT or Windows 2000 that dont have security patch installed. Each time it found an unsecured server, the worm copied itself to that server.

Code Red Worm


Designed to do three things Replicate itself for the first 20 days of each month. Replace web pages on infected servers with a page that declares Hacked by Chinese Launch a concreted attack on the White House Web server

Symptoms of Infection
Programs take longer to load than normal. Computers hard drive constantly runs out of free space. The floppy disk drive or hard drive runs when you are not using it. New files keep appearing on the system and you dont know where it come frm.

Symptoms of Infection Cont..


Strange sounds or beeping noises come from the computer. Strange graphics are displayed on your computer monitor. Unable to access the hard drive when booting from the floppy drive. Program sizes keep changing.

Protection
TO protect yourself you need to be Proactive about Security issues. Being reactive wont solve anything; Specially at crunch time and deadlines!! In matter of fact it can make the problem much more complex to solve, and the situation much worse, resulting in a complete Nightmare!! Best Measures are the preventative ones.

Protection Measures
You need to basically to do four steps to keep your computer and your data secure: 1. Get the latest Anti-Virus Software. 2. Make sure you have the latest security patches and hot fixes using Windows Update. 3. Use a Host-Based Firewall. 4. BACKUP your Important Files.

Conclusion
Be aware of the new infections out there. Take precaution measures. Always backup your data. Keep up-to-date on new Anti virus software. Simply avoid programs from unknown sources.

References
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/virus.htm http://www.son.washington.edu/nshelp/fire wall.asp Dewdney, A. K. The New Turing Omnibus. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2001

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