Minwossi Zerbo
Mrs. Jensen
English 1A-21
14 November 2015
Computer Security: Worms and viruses Nowadays, in the domain of computer sciences, there is a big problem to face: Worms and viruses. Being in the technology is a good thing, but being n the technology without knowing how to avoid the consequences of the technology is worse. Viruses and worms affect the computer and damage, or in other words corrupt some files that are important to the good functioning of the computer. Viruses have many ways of penetration that computers user ignore, and that’s what makes the damage even more severe. First of all, let’s start by defining a viruses and a worm. A virus is a malware program (not a computer program), that auto run, and replicates by adding copies of their code into other computer program, any other type of data that it comes across. This will create an overall corruption of your database and your computer. In reality, there are three categories of computer infections malwares and we defined the first one which is viruses. The two second malwares are worms and Trojan horses. In a questions of codes or designs they are all similar, but the differences come in the way these three categories act. Contrarily to viruses that need a human action to spread, such as sharing files, running an infected program, and so on, worms have the ability to auto spread themselves, which mean that they don’t require the action of a human. They can travel by themselves by taking advantages on files and other information’s that runs through the system. A Trojan horse is like a “SOFISTICATED” version of viruses and worms. It behaves like a useful software that triggers you to open them, and as soon as their open your computer gets infected. Trojan horses appear at first like useful software’s, but are in reality tricky. One main difference between the Trojan horse and the two other categories of malwares is that the Trojan horse doesn’t replicates itself nor doesn’t affect other files. Another main point to discuss is why all this malware were created. First of all, they are hundred or even millions of viruses, worms, Trojan horses in the world, and each one of those has a purpose, and objective. The most valuables and important objectives that I came out with is that the all are created either to take control of your computer, to generate money, to steal sensitive data and information, or even to cripple(paralyze) a system of a computer. The main problem that peoples endure nowadays, is that they get viruses, and don’t know how to get rid of it, so there are stuck with a lagging computer full of viruses, that can even be transmitted buy network sharing. Well first of all to avoid getting viruses you have to know how you get infected, what are the openings that a virus can use, and so on. The main operating system exposed more to viruses is Microsoft windows, because it’s a closed source operating system, but an opened system, which means that you can’t download from itself, you have to download from outside sources, so people tends to create cracks and bypassing, and incorporating viruses by the same way. So as people download cracked software, they also download viruses. Most of the dangerous malwares are always found in Microsoft operating systems. Most infection always come from there. Other systems are more secured and harder to get infected by malwares. As for other operating systems such as Linux or iOS, they can’t take viruses, because they are opened source operating systems, but closed systems, which means you can download from it, they have their own source, which prevents you to take viruses from the outside, and since they’re closed systems, they can’t take any viruses form the outside.
The problem about viruses is mentioned everywhere. On the Microsoft website, on of their analyst on microsoft.com/FAQ's explain clearly what a virus does, and how you can contract it. They explain what are the main inconveniences that you can encounter when you get a virus on your computer. Kaspersky also said in one of their interviews on kasperky.com that they were sure that by contracting a dangerous virus such as Christina Aguilera can cause a serious damage on your computer, forcing the antivirus to delete some of your .dll extension files that can cause serious damages to your computer. Indeed, people always talk about viruses and forget to talk about the others malwares that exist which are worms and Trojan horses. People don’t really see that these are also real treats for computer security. They can cause as much damages aa viruses do. Mainly, many people tend to avoid the take of viruses by installing anti viruses, which prevents you to take some viruses. But instead of installing antiviruses from the outside, windows itself can take care of viruses. One way of preventing malwares to attack your computer is to make sure all your firewall are turns on when you’re using your windows computer, this will prevent you from gaining any viruses from any public network and it will also prevent all malicious software’s that want to be installed on your computer without authorization to be blocked. Also, the to use the command CHKDSK and the command SFC/SCANNOW, typed in the windows command prompt to fixed all corrupt files found in the operating system. It replaces all the corrupted files, all the deleted files, and runs a full disk check of your system. One more thing that I'll add is to always make sure to scan trough your documents once a week to make sure any obsolete files wasn’t installed on your computer, if you see so, delete them immediately. Malwares are a real threat in the world of computers. Just a single virus can cause the loss of a lot of data that will be garbage and no use. People don’t only use viruses to destroys computers, but the also use them as spams to gain information from you such as credits cards numbers, bank accounts, and so on. The best way to avoid viruses is to try and keep the system closed, avoiding any malicious websites, or any weird programs, especially program that crack other programs. Malwares are a real threat and some actions ha to be taken to prevent users to be hacked and exposed to dangers.