Computer System As A Harmful Virus example essay topic

Computers have become much more important and popular to our society in recent decades. The computer's ability to perform so many tasks speedily and reliably makes it useful for a wide variety of purposes. Therefore much important information is stored on computers. Because people and organisations depend on computers every day for a variety of significant tasks, it is imperative that the systems which are used are protected from loss, damage and misuse. This essay identifies some potential risks to computer systems and software and the safeguards that can be taken to minimise these risks. A computer security risk is defined as any event or action that could cause a loss or damage to computer equipment, software, data and information, or processing capability.

Some of these risks, such as viruses, unauthorised access and use, and information theft, involve deliberate acts, which are against the law. Any illegal act involving a computer generally is referred to as a computer crime. With the advent of the modern day digital computer, a new methodology of crime has been created. Electronic crime is held partly responsible for wreaking havoc in the financial world. Computer systems are under attack from a multitude of sources today.

These range from human threats such as hackers to malicious code such as viruses and worms. The term hacker, though initially a positive term, has become associated with people who try to break into computer systems. Crackers and hackers typically break into systems by connecting to them via modems and logging in as a user. Some do no damage, but merely wander around the system before logging off, while others leave some evidence of their presence by either leaving a message or altering data. Unauthorized use is the use of a computer system or computer data for unapproved or possibly illegal activities.

This may range from an employee using the database for personal activities to gaining access to a bank system and completing an unauthorized transfer Human threats are perpetrated by a person or groups of people who attempt to penetrate computer systems through computer networks, public switched telephone networks or other sources. These attacks generally attack known security vulnerabilities of systems. These vulnerabilities are mainly due to software configuration errors. Methods used by hackers to gain unauthorised access to systems include password cracking, exploiting known security weaknesses and network spoofing. Password cracking is a technique used to surreptitiously gain system access by using another users account. Users often select weak passwords.

The two major sources of weaknesses in passwords are easily guessed passwords based on knowledge of the user (e.g. wife's maiden name) and passwords that are susceptible to dictionary attacks (i.e. brute-force guessing of passwords using a dictionary as the source of guesses). Another type of method to gain unauthorised access is the exploitation of known security weaknesses. Two types of security weaknesses exist: configuration errors and security bugs. Configuration errors occur when a system is set up in such a way that unwanted exposure is allowed. Then, according to the configuration, the system is at risk from even legitimate actions. An example of this would be if a system "exports" a file system to the world (makes the contents of a file system available to all other systems on the network).

Then any other machine can have full access to that file system. Security bugs occur when unexpected actions are allowed on the system due to a loophole in some application program. An example would be sending a very long string of keystrokes to a screen locking program, thus causing the program to crash and leaving the system inaccessible. A third method of gaining unauthorised access is networks spoofing. In network spoofing a system presents itself to the network as though it were a different system. Network spoofing occurs in the following manner: If system A trusts system B, system C spoofs (impersonates) system B. This allows system C to gain otherwise denied access to system A. The easiest way to understand what a virus is, is to think of it as a biological virus.

A computer virus also needs a host to infect. In this case it infects programs such as Internet Explorer, Microsoft Word or even the computer's Operating System. As compared to a biological virus, a computer virus may be as benign to your computer's hard drive as a common cold or as destructive as the Ebola Virus. Viruses are made up of what is called code. Code is basic instructions that tell the program what to do (i.e. Show a picture, play a song, etc. ).

The computer virus attaches itself to the code and infects the program. When the infected program is run, the virus replicates itself into other programs. This program in turn may infect another program. Viruses may be written to multiply, to damage other programs, to alter files, to delete files or in extreme cases cause physical damage to the computers RAM or disk drives. Some viruses play music, create messages or even play animations that could be considered amusing... if they weren't causing damage to the system at the same time.

What makes viruses difficult is that, like in the infecting phase, the attacking phase can also wait for some event to trigger it. This means that a virus can wait on a system for years before it actually does anything. Although not all viruses are written to cause damage to a computer system, they exist without the user's permission or knowledge and have the potential to do so. Anything that writes itself to a computer disk is stealing storage (i.e. room for other programs) and CPU cycles (i.e. slowing down the system). Some viruses take advantage of the computer's operating system to copy itself into other files or disks. When the infected disk is inserted into another computer, the virus then copies itself onto files on that computers hard drive.

The cycle continues as long as files are being shared between computers. Another way of catching a computer virus is by downloading a file from the Internet or online service and running it. Most viruses on the Internet are disguised as e-mail attachments. These attachments are often program files or office documents containing macros. There are also certain web pages that contain harmful programming code that may transfer into a computer system as a harmful virus or virus-like codes. There are four main types of computer viruses: Boot sector viruses are usually transmitted when an infected floppy disk is left in the drive and the system is rebooted.

The virus is read from the infected boot sector of the floppy disk and written to the master boot record of the system's hard drive. The master boot sector is the first place your system reads from when booting up from the hard drive. Then, whenever the computer is booted up, the virus will be loaded into the system's memory. Program or file viruses are pieces of viral code that attach themselves to executable programs.

Once the infected program is run, the virus is transferred to the system's memory and may replicate itself further. Macro viruses are currently the most commonly found viruses. They infect files run by applications that use macro languages, like Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel. The virus looks like a macro in the file, and when the file is opened, the virus can execute commands understood by the application's macro language.

Multipartite viruses have characteristics of both boot sector viruses and file viruses. They may start out in the boot sector of the computer system and then spread to the applications, or vice versa Other malicious programs such as worms and Trojan horses are usually considered as viruses. A worm is a program that replicates itself but does not necessarily infect other programs. Just like in the Greek myth, Trojan horses contain a concealed surprise. A Trojan horse program lies hidden in another seemingly harmless piece of software until some condition triggers its awakening. Why are they called viruses?

The term virus was first used in the early 1980's by Professor Fred Cohen to describe programs that self-replicate. It is an appropriate name because like a biological virus, a computer virus is small, makes copies of itself and cannot exist without a host. However, the first DOS based virus was only created in 1986. It was the Brain virus from Pakistan.

Brain was a boot sector and only infected 360 k floppy disks. Even though it was the first virus, it had full stealth capability. Today, there are over 30000 computer viruses in existence. It's a known fact that there are 15 to 20 new viruses created each day. Over the last few years, the world has seen a rapid increase in computer viruses: In 1999, the Melissa virus, W 97 M / Melissa, spread faster than any previous virus. The virus executed a macro in a document attached to an email, which forwarded the document to 50 people in the user's Outlook address book.

The virus also infected Microsoft Word documents and also sent them out as attachments. In the year 2000, A virus similar to Melissa, called The Love Bug or ILOVEYOU virus was released. The virus came as a VBS attachment and deleted files on the users computer. It also sent usernames and passwords to the virus's author. This year, the Anna Kournikova virus, also known as VBS / SST, which masqueraded as a picture of tennis star Anna Kournikova, and operates in a similar manner to Melissa and The Love Bug was released. It spread ed by sending copies of itself to the entire address book in Microsoft Outlook.

It is believed that this virus was created with a so-called virus creation kit, a program which can enable even a novice programmer to create these malicious programs. The Code Red I and II worms attacked computer networks in July and August. According to Computer Economics they affected over 700,000 computers and caused over 2 billion dollars in damages. A worm spreads through external and (then) internal computer networks, as opposed to a virus which infects computers via email and certain websites. Code Red took advantage of a vulnerability in Microsoft's Windows 2000 and Windows NT server software. Currently, the latest virus threats are: W 32.

Whiter. Trojan, which is a Trojan Horse and deletes all files on a Windows XP system. VBS. E rul. A@mm which is a simple Visual Basic Script (VBS) worm that sends email to all contacts that are in the Microsoft Outlook address book W 97 M. Sting is a macro virus that infects Microsoft Word documents and overwrites the global template, Normal. dot.

The virus changes the printer and document settings 30 days after infection. It also modifies the Auto exec. bat so that the file is run when you start Windows. W 32. Vote. A@mm is a mass-mailing worm that is written in Visual Basic.

When executed, it will email itself out to all email addresses in the Microsoft Outlook address book. The worm will insert two. vs. files on the system, and it will also attempt to delete files from several antivirus products There are some precautionary measures to protect systems against viruses: Scan system for viruses and be careful when installing software or downloading files. Set anti-virus software to scan everything and always update anti-virus software. Be wary of any e-mail. Don't trade disks around. Backup regularly.

Disable macros in MS Word / Excel. There are also other forms of computer crimes that exist: Hardware Theft: In the case of desktop and larger computer systems in a home or office, hardware theft generally is not a problem. Computer labs with a large number of semi-frequent users often additional physical security devices such as cables that lock equipment to a desk or floor. Common sense and a constant awareness of the risk are the best preventive measures against theft of portable computer devices.

Software Theft: The most common forms of software theft is software piracy. This is the unauthorised and illegal copying and use of copyrighted software. The consumer has no right to copy, loan, rent, or in any way distribute the software- it is a federal crime. One study reported that software piracy resulted in a world-wide loss of more than $1.5 billion p. a. Software companies take illegal copying seriously, and in some cases offenders have been prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

To reduce software costs for organisations with large number of users, vendors often offer special discount pricing or site licensing. Purchasing a software site license gives the organisation the right to install the software on multiple computers at a single site. Theft is not the only cause of hardware, software, data, or information loss. Any of these can occur during a system failure, which is a prolonged malfunction of a computer system usually caused by natural disasters or by electrical power variations, which are more common. For electrical protection, many users connect an uninterruptible power supply device that contains surge protection circuits and one or more batteries that can provide power during a temporary or permanent loss of power. To conclude: Poor administrative practices and the lack of education, tools and controls combine to leave the average system vulnerable to attack.

Research promises to alleviate the inadequate supply of tools and applicable controls. These controls, however, tend to be add-on controls. There is a need for the delivery of secure systems, rather than the ability to build one from parts. The average administrator has little inclination to perform these modifications, and no idea how to perform them. As long as this occurs, hackers, , and other malicious users will continue to prey on these systems. Also, extensive connectivity increases system access for hackers.

Until standards become widely used, network security will continue to be handled on a system by system basis. The problem can be expected to increase without appropriate security capabilities. A promising note for the future does exist. Multiple sets of tools do not need to be developed in order to solve each of the potential threats to a system. Many of the controls that will stop one type of attack on a system will be beneficial against many other forms of attack. The challenge is to determine what is the minimum set of controls necessary to protect a system with an acceptable degree of assurance.

System users and administrators must also educate themselves on a continuing basis. Only this way will they be able to remain current in methods of preventive action against hacker and electronic criminal activity. Society is still seeing the infancy of computers, not just in its general growth, but in its capabilities of controlling every facet of our normal lives. If we do not attempt to broaden our awareness of computer science, we will continue to become victims of electronic attacks. Virus problem is getting worse.

Increasing pressures to connect to the outside world, exchange information and do it all rapidly, decrease the control over what is exchanged and increases the potential for malicious code to penetrate even the best protected environments. The virus-writing underworld is determined to cause as much damage and trouble as they can, using the Internet to the maximum potential to spread rapidly while not exposing themselves to any dangers of being caught. Anti-virus companies are finding it more difficult to keep up the research effort and most recently consolidated or abandoned their efforts. The future is not very rosy, but given sufficient determination and resources to crack the virus problem, it is possible to combat it. Hopefully, after reading this report you have a better understanding of what future lies before us and what we must do to keep its integrity intact.