Essay, Research Paper
Truth and Lies About the Computer Virus
Walk into any computing machine shop today and there will be at least twenty or
30 computing machine virus plans. From the expressions of it computing machine viruses have
gotten out of manus and so has the concern of halting it. The computing machine user
must cut through the media ballyhoo of apocoliptic viruses and shareware plans
and detect the existent facts.
Before we even start the journey of researching the computing machine virus we must
foremost extinguish all the & # 8220 ; fluff. & # 8221 ; The computing machine user needs to understand how
information about viruses reaches the populace. Person creates the virus and
so infects at least one computing machine. The virus clangs or ruins the septic
computing machine. A anti-virus company obtains a transcript of the virus and surveies it. The
anti-virus company makes an & # 8220 ; unbiased & # 8221 ; determination about the virus and so
unwrap their findings to the populace. The job with the current system is
that there are no cheques and balances. If the anti-virus company wants to do
viruses seem worse all they have to make is falsify the truth. There is no
organisation that certifies wheather or non a virus is existent. Even more
potentially harmful is that the anti-virus companies could compose viruses in
order to sell their plans. Software companies have and do falsify the truth
about viruses. & # 8220 ; Antivirus houses tend to number even the most undistinguished
fluctuations of viruses for advertisement intents. When the Marijuana virus foremost
appeared, for illustration, it contained the word & # 8220 ; legalise, & # 8221 ; but a reprobate later
modified it to read & # 8220 ; legalize. & # 8221 ; Any plan which detects the original virus can
observe the version with one missive changed & # 8212 ; but antivirus companies frequently
number them as & # 8220 ; two & # 8221 ; viruses. These vague distinctions rapidly add up. & # 8221 ;
hypertext transfer protocol: //www.kumite.com/myths/myth005.htm By the way the Marijuana virus is besides
called the & # 8220 ; Stoned & # 8221 ; virus there by doing it yet another on the list of viruses
that companies protect your computing machine against.
I went to the McAfee Anti-virus Web site looking for information on the
Marijuana virus but was unable to obtain that information. I was nevertheless able
to acquire a transcript of the top 10 viruses of their site. On specific virus called
Drug addict: & # 8220 ; Junkie is a multi-partite, memory occupant, coding virus. Drug addict
specifically marks.COM files, the DOS boot sector on floppy floppies and the
Master Boot Record ( MBR ) . When initial infection is in the signifier of a file
infecting virus, Junkie infects the MBR or floppy boot sector, disables VSafe
( an anti-virus terminate-and-stay-resident plan ( TSR ) , which is included with
MS-DOS 6.X ) and loads itself at Side 0, Cylinder 0, Sectors 4 and 5. The virus
does non go memory occupant, or infect files at this clip. Subsequently when the
system is booted from the system difficult disc, the Junkie virus becomes memory
occupant at the top of system memory below the 640K DOS boundary, traveling
interrupt 12 & # 8217 ; s returns. Once memory occupant, Junkie begins infecting.COM files
as they are executed, and corrupts.COM files. The Junkie virus infects
floppy boot sectors as they are accessed. The virus will compose a transcript of
itself to the last path of the floppy, and so change the boot sector to
point to this codification. On high denseness 5.25 inch floppies, the viral codification will be
located on Cylinder 79, Side 1, Sectors 8 and 9. & # 8221 ; Junkie & # 8217 ; s description is that
of a basic stealth/Trojan virus which have been in existance for 10 old ages. They
besides listed Anti-exe as one of the top 10 viruses but did non acknowlege the
fact that it has three assumed names. It & # 8217 ; s no admiration that the general populace is
confused about computing machine viruses!
I decided to look into the whole girl or diss-information issue a
small farther. I went to the Data Fellows Web site to what the distributers of
F-prot had to state about viruses. It is to no surprise that I found them seeking
to see package with the typical panic tactics: Quite late, we read in the
newspapers how CIA and NSA ( National Security Agency ) managed to interrupt into the
EU Commission & # 8217 ; s systems and entree confidential information about the GATT
dialogues. The stolen information was so exploited in the dialogues.
The EU Commission denies the allegation, but that is a common pattern in
affairs affecting information security breaches. At the beginning of June, the
intelligence in Great Britain told the populace about an incident where British and
American Bankss had paid 400 million lbs in ransom to maintain the felons who
had broken into their systems from publicising the systems & # 8217 ; weaknesses [ London
Timess, 3.6.1996 ] . The amounts involved are merely tremendous, particularly since all
these 1000000s of lbs bought nil more than silence. Harmonizing to London
Timess, the Bankss & # 8217 ; representatives said that the money had been paid because
& # 8220 ; promotion about such onslaughts could damage consumer assurance in the security
of their systems & # 8221 ; . Condemnable hackers are likely encouraged by the fact that,
in most instances, their victims are non at wholly eager to describe the incidents to the
constabulary. And that is non all ; presuming that the information reported by London
Timess is right, they may even acquire paid a & # 8220 ; fee & # 8221 ; for interrupting in? a computing machine is
broken into in Internet every 20 seconds? Whatever the truth about these
incidents may be, the fact remains that current information systems are rather
vulnerable to incursion from outside. As Internet becomes more popular and
spreads of all time wider, felons can interrupt into an increasing figure of systems
easy and without a existent hazard of being caught. & # 8221 ;
Then the following paragraph stated:
& # 8220 ; Even at their initial phases, Data Fellows Ltd & # 8217 ; s F-Secure merchandises run into
many of these demands. It is the end of our go oning merchandise development to
finally address all such information security needs. & # 8221 ; In other words nil
is safe unless you buy their merchandises.
Now that we have cleared the fume on viruses we know that there are
merely approximately 500 basic viruses. These viruses are tweaked, renamed, and re-
cycled.
So, what is a virus? First of wholly, we must be cognizant that there is no
universally accepted appellative pattern or find method for viruses. Therefore
all virus information is subjective and capable to reading and changeless
difference.
To specify a virus we must inquire an expert. Harmonizing to Fred Cohen a
computing machine virus is a computing machine plan that can infect other computing machine plans by
modifying them in such a manner as to include a ( perchance evolved ) transcript of itself.
This does non intend that a virus has to do harm because a virus may be
written to garner informations and obtain concealed files in your system.
Now that you are cognizant of the frauds and miss-information about viruses
you will be better equipped to cover with viral information. The following clip you
hear of a slayer virus merely retrieve what you have learned. You know that all
viruses have the same roots.
