June's 3rd Update 19/1/09

Hi there, well I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and Happy New Year. Well now that all the holidays have past it's time to get back to business. This is my third update and I have loads to tell you on what I have been reading up on. First of all I have read the whole of chapter one of the book and tested myself on the quiz at the end of it and I was so chuffed with myself that I got 9 out of 10 which I thought was great. Anyway let me tell you what I have learned.

First of all I started with the Viruses

When buying a computer and setting it up at home people are unaware that as soon as you connect it to the Internet you are already vulnerable to attack of malicious software attaching it's self to your computer, they can contain bugs that can cause your computer to crash, go very slow.

Computer viruses have two features they can execute themselves which means they attach themselves to executable files such as an application or utility program and they must replicate or copy which is often done by replacing programs with copies infected with viruses.

Some viruses can go straight for the servers and this can become a complete nightmare as it can slow down the whole system and you are unable to use it as it crashes or goes so slow which is impossible to use. The name used for this attack is call DoS which is Denial of service. Another virus which I found to be very interesting was the multipartite virus, this one has a double sting in the tail, it infects both the boot sector and the files and has the nerve to leave an image to say that it called. There are other examples for this virus but I liked this one Tequila as it left a calling card, bad enough that you have the virus.

These viruses are very cunning, the Stealth viruses tries to hide it's self from anti virus software and the Memory-resident lurks in the memory waiting to infect other programs, they are like the shark in Jaws waiting to grab it's victim from the sea.

Trojans and Worms

Trojans are started by a user and they do not replicate, They can attach themselves to emails and that is why it is very important that you should be very careful when opening email attachments or down loading stuff from the internet. If this occurs the virus can cause loss or theft of data that is stored on you computer.

Worms can replicate themselves and don't need a user, worms can hide themselves in files and can travel from computer to computer . They can hide in files such as Mircosoft word and Excel, and by inserting a floppy disk, memory pen or just by running a program. They can take control over your computer. mass mailing sends emails to your whole address book.

Image Viruses

Image viruses this was one that I again found very scary as only just learning about this is was hard to understand that you can get a virus attached to an image which has been send to your computer and it can be hidding in the image. We at home take a great deal of digital photos and send them by email to the USA and you just don't realise that they can attach themselves to a photo or a clip that you have taken fromn the internet.


Screensavers

Again was not aware that you could get a virus on a screen saver, but after reading about it coming in an image and also with the Trojan attaching it to an email it is all becoming clear to me and I am learning so much from this course already which is great.


Anti Virus Software

I had heard of anti virus software before as we have it on the computer at home, which was the Norton software and McAfee. It was good to sit down and read through what they did in depth as you just see it as your computer starts up, but not really aware of the back ground of what it actually does such as: worm protection, removes spyware, blocks spyware and worms automatically, prevents virus infectied emails from spreading. These are just a few of the things that an anit virus package can do for your computer there are many packages that you can choose from. BT, Virgin, etc

I will finish off here tonight and I will log back on tomorrow with my next blog which will be all about Spyware. I hope that I am filling this in the correct way and that you are able to understand what I am trying to get across. bye for now