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Computer Viruses & How To Avoid Them
What Is A Computer Virus & Who Creates Them?
Typical virus writers are thought to be men aged 16-28 years old with above average computer programming skills. They're students, social drop-outs, disgruntled employees or terrorists. Excessive ego or raging revenge seems to compel these authors to brazenly shrug off the costly damage they cause.
..........They might live anywhere in the world!
WARNING: New Virus Alert!!!
There have been some new very destructive viruses detected in the past few years such as MELISSA, JOKE, I LOVE YOU and CALIFORNIA, also an increase in e-mail viruses and fake prizes on the Internet. One example is if you see a message asking you to "CLICK HERE", as you have won a cruise, DON'T, as you will be disappointed and will probably get your hard drive wiped clean at the same time!
WE CAN'T EMPHASISE ENOUGH HOW IMPORTANT IT IS TO RUN
MODERN ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE ON YOUR COMPUTER SYSTEM.
ALTHOUGH, EVEN THE LATEST SOFTWARE
IS ONLY AS GOOD AS THE LATEST UPDATE.
NEW VIRUSES ARE BEING WRITTEN EVERY DAY, SO
HAVING NO PROTECTION IS NOT AN OPTION!
   
Click On The Pictures Above For More Information On Their Products
Note: Certain companies that deal with client data such as banks, solicitors, accountants etc. may legally be responsible for loss of data due to a virus attack if adequate precautions have not be taken to protect the clients data. It could also render any insurance claim invalid for the same reason. Even computer users who run a business from home dealing with similar data could find themselves in the same situation.
Please Read these lastest updates before continuing to Virus Information
What is spam?
What is Phishing?
Spam
Has nothing to do with a tin of “Spam”
Spam is flooding the Internet with many copies of the same message, in an attempt to force the message on people who would not otherwise choose to receive it. Most spam is commercial advertising, often for dubious products, get-rich-quick schemes, or quasi-legal services. Spam costs the sender very little to send -- most of the costs are paid for by the recipient or the carriers rather than by the sender.
There are two main types of spam, and they have different effects on Internet users. Cancellable Usenet spam is a single message sent to 20 or more Usenet newsgroups. (Through long experience, Usenet users have found that any message posted to so many newsgroups is often not relevant to most or all of them.) Usenet spam is aimed at "lurkers", people who read newsgroups but rarely or never post and give their address away. Usenet spam robs users of the utility of the newsgroups by overwhelming them with a barrage of advertising or other irrelevant posts. Furthermore, Usenet spam subverts the ability of system administrators and owners to manage the topics they accept on their systems.
Email spam targets individual users with direct mail messages. Email spam lists are often created by scanning Usenet postings, stealing Internet mailing lists, or searching the Web for addresses. Email spams typically cost users money out-of-pocket to receive. Many people - anyone with measured phone service - read or receive their mail while the meter is running, so to speak. Spam costs them additional money. On top of that, it costs money for ISPs and online services to transmit spam, and these costs are transmitted directly to subscribers.
One particularly nasty variant of email spam is sending spam to mailing lists (public or private email discussion forums.) Because many mailing lists limit activity to their subscribers, spammers will use automated tools to subscribe to as many mailing lists as possible, so that they can grab the lists of addresses, or use the mailing list as a direct target for their attacks.
Phishing
Has nothing to do with “Fishing”
Phishing is the act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft. The e-mail directs the user to visit a Web site where they are asked to update personal information, such as passwords and credit card, social security, and bank account numbers, that the legitimate organization already has. The Web site, however, is bogus and set up only to steal the user’s information.
For example, 2003 saw the proliferation of a phishing scam in which users received e-mails supposedly from eBay claiming that the user’s account was about to be suspended unless he clicked on the provided link and updated the credit card information that the genuine eBay already had. Because it is relatively simple to make a Web site look like a legitimate organizations site by mimicking the HTML code, the scam counted on people being tricked into thinking they were actually being contacted by eBay and were subsequently going to eBay’s site to update their account information. By spamming large groups of people, the “phisher” counted on the e-mail being read by a percentage of people who actually had listed credit card numbers with eBay legitimately.
Phishing, also referred to as brand spoofing or carding, is a variation on "fishing," the idea being that bait is thrown out with the hopes that while most will ignore the bait, some will be tempted into biting.
Now Back To Viruses
Criminals!
That's what the writers of computer viruses are. Without warning, they can take away your most valuable tools for communicating with words, graphics, accounting, analysis, managing processes or people. They might as well steal your whole computer. Those aren't small time crooks, either. They've written more than 18,000 computer viruses with some 50,000 sub strains worldwide, most of them recently. The number now is growing so fast that some experts think there'll be over a million strains of virus's within 10 years. Imagine all those viruses purposely turned loose to sabotage unsuspecting computer users large and small.
A serious virus infection can put the user out of business from a few days up to months, and that's only the first time. If the victim isn't careful, it could show up again before long! The National Computer Security Association (NCSA) of Carlisle PA and Dataquest of San Jose CA surveyed hundreds of North American businesses with more than 300 personal computers (PCs) each..........Two thirds suffered virus hits at least once.
Nobody knows the total price tag for crimes by computer virus authors, but it's estimated in the billions of '£££. Yet viruses don't have to cripple your productivity like that. With knowledge and the tips that follow, you can significantly reduce your chances of becoming a virus victim.
How Viruses Work
A computer virus is a relatively small program that does certain things: Viruses get onto a computer hard disk without being invited or announcing its arrival. It lies in wait, later ambushing your computer when you do something innocent like turning on the computer or opening a software application. These viruses can replicate themselves so it can secretly spread to other parts of the hard disk, floppy diskettes or to other computers via a Network connection. It may only print a nuisance message on your screen, but may also cause irretrievable damage to computer data. i.e. any information YOU can delete from your hard disk can be deleted by a virus too!
There's More!
These criminals (as I choose to call them) also have unleashed virus like programs that cause damage in a suicide attack because they can't replicate themselves. "Logic Bombs" lie in wait until you take a specific action. "Time Bombs" wait for a specific action on a certain time or date. "Trojan Horses" appear to be legitimate applications (like the Trojan Horse in the Greek myth appeared to be a gift but was actually an instrument of war used by the Greeks to gain access to the city of Troy) and do their damage when the programs are opened. "Worms" on the other hand, burrow through and between networks (as real worms burrow through the ground undetected) to change or overwrite data. "Polymorphic" viruses (hence: the Greek roots literally mean "many forms") can change and encrypt their own signatures so what your Anti-Virus software may pick up today may not tomorrow.
Latest Virus Threats! (as of the late 1990’s, they change every so it’s near impossible to keep track, however the following are still some of the most destructive!
Klez.E is the most common worldwide spreading worm. It is very efficient at corrupting your files because of its very smart stealth and anti Anti-Virus techniques most common Anti-Virus software can't detect or clean it. Listed Below are what we call the "Top 10" latest threats for corporate users, although these mainly are classified as a medium risk.
Exploit-MIME.gen JS/NoClose, W32/Bugbear.b@MM, W32/Elkern.cav,
W32/Lovesan.worm.a, W32/Mimail@MM, W32/Nachi.worm, W32/SQLSlammer.worm,
W32/SoBig.f@MM and W32/Yaha.k@MM
Don't be fooled despite the fact that the risk is medium; they can quite easily cause untold damage to any unprotected system.
Home Users
Medium to large businesses and above have a lot more to loose (in most cases) than the home user. Although home users are sometimes more at risk, as they basically have to look after their own systems, unlike larger companies that would have administrators or IT staff to implement Anti-Virus, Firewall protection and other security measures.
The home user can fall into several categories: a small business run from home, students using a computer to help with their day to day studies and any other person who uses a computer from menial tasks, to keeping a digital photo album, downloading digital music (provided you have paid for the copyright) to managing the home accounts.
I have assessed many clients in the above categories and found that they do not understand the technology of viruses and the damage they can cause, and many simply can't justify the expense or do not believe a virus will infect their system. This is perfectly understandable as I know nothing about cars, but I do know that it would run out of petrol if I did not do something about it. ………But only time will tell, just don't wait till It's too late!
With so many home users now connected to the Internet and more and more criminals writing more viruses it is imperative that some protection is taken by the home user. As an example the W32.blaster.worm that attracted so much media attention a few weeks back was a real pain for IT consultants like myself, I had clients calling in desperation as their computer systems were constantly rebooting themselves at random every few minutes or so. Even NTL Cable T.V. dedicated a 24-hour channel just to explain to their Internet customers how to deal with the problem.
Many pages could be written on this subject but this is just not practical on this web page. I hope that this has given you some food for thought about just how frustrating, disruptive and in some cases destructive viruses can be if you are ever unfortunate to "catch one" or "invite one"?
At Senaph Computer Consultants we advise you on the best way to deal with above situation by the way of making sure that you buy the correct Anti-Virus software and give you advice to help you keep your software up to date. We are finding an alarming number of new clients who do not use Anti-Virus software. We have also found that users that do own such software never update it on a regular basis. (which is recommended by leading Anti-Virus software programs like Symantec, Macafee & F-Secure
Please contact us if you need additional information
Senaph Computer Consultants
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