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Computer Virus and Worms Scholarly Journal of Mathematics and Computer Science Vol. 7(1), pp. 1-9, December 2018 Available online at http:// www.scholarly-journals.com/SJMCS ISSN 2276-8947 © 2018 Scholarly-Journals Full Length Research Paper A study on malware: Computer virus and worms Rabia Khan MCA, Punjab Technical University, India. Author email :[email protected] Accepted 16 December, 2018 Malware or malicious software is a type of security threat that brings harm to computer system. Most organizations are affecting by malware. Malware steal protected data, by pass access control, delete document or add documents not approved by user. Malware can be in the form of virus, worms Trojan horse, adware, spyware, rootkit, backdoor, and botnet. In this paper, we study the most significant malware: Virus and worms can have a devastating effect on business continuity and profitability. Also this paper describes the timeline of virus, worms and Trojan horse. Key words: Malware, malicious software, data, virus, worms Trojan horse INTRODUCTION Nowadays, a huge variety of cyber-attacks are available of these security threats try to violate confidentially, that can be affect not only big organization but also affect integrity and accessibility. Malicious software (malware in the personal computers such as brute force attack, social short) is software designed to cause harm to computer engineering/cyber fraud attacks, distributed denial of and user (Abhisheck Ranjan (www.geeksforgeeks.org), service attack, phishing attacks and malware attack. All Neil, 2012). Adware biggest threats to security systems. Botnet can be used Adware is one type of malware that automatically delivers for Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, as advertisements. This is able to pop-up advertisements on spambots that render advertisements on websites, as websites and advertisements that are displayed by web spiders that scrape server data, and for distributing software. malware disguised as popular search items on download sites. Botnet Rootkit Botnet is another type of malware that is able to perform specific operations automatically. It became one of the A rootkit was designed to remotely access or control a Scholarly J. Math. Comp. Sci. 2 computer without being detected by users or security Philippines (Wajeb, 2011). programs. When a rootkit infected the system then it is possible to the malicious party behind it to remotely execute files, access or steal information, modify system How do Computer Viruses spread in Computer configurations, alter the software, install concealed malware, or take control the computer as part of a botnet. Before intervention of Internet, virus often spread from Rootkit prevention, detection, and removal are difficult. computer to computer via infected removable flash drive. If a flash drive has been infected with a virus from a source computer and when a person boots the Spyware removable flash drive in another computer it will be trigger the spread of the virus from the removable flash Spyware is another type of malware that work as spying drive to the computer. For example, if person purchases on user activity without their knowledge. These spying software that is infected with virus and then install the capabilities can know the activities of user include activity same software in his/her computer the running of the monitoring, collecting keystrokes, account information, software can trigger the virus to spread to his/her logins, financial data and more. computer. The most common way of spreading the virus is through e-mail attachments. Most people send email message with attachments. These attachments often Trojan horse always contain computer virus so that when a computer user downloads the attachment the computer virus is A Trojan horse also known as a “Trojan,” is another type eventually transmitted to the user computer. of malware that disguises itself as a normal file or Now we can say the most common way to spreading program to trick users into downloading and installing the virus is via Internet (Adam, 2010). malware. A Trojan horse can give a malicious party remote access to an infected computer. Once an attacker has access to an infected computer, it is possible for the Harmful Effect of Computer Virus attacker to steal data like as logins, financial data, and even electronic money, install more malware, also modify Virus can create minor damage to major damage. Virus files, monitor user activity like as screen watching, can replicate themselves they can cause damage the keylogging, etc, use the computer in botnets process, computer system by taking up huge memory or disk and anonymize Internet activity by the attacker. space, damaging or corrupting data, changing data, erasing files or locking up the whole computer system (Lynn, 2016). What is Computer Virus The lists of effect of computer viruses are as follows: A computer virus so called a virus because it has similar characteristics with a biological virus. Like biological • Reduce the memory space, damage disks virus, computer virus can also be transformed from one • Increase the startup time and run time computer to another computer. Computer viruses are one • Computer runs slower than usual type of malware, a self-replicating programs designed to • Computer stops responding to the commands spread itself from computer to computer and capable of • Computer hangs frequently reproducing copies of itself and inserting them into other • Computer restarts every few minutes programs of files. We can say computer viruses are • Certain applications are not running frequently computer programs that are designed to spread • Appearance of unusual messages themselves from one file to another on a single file. • Distorting menu and dialog boxes Viruses spread quickly to many files within computer, but • Improper functioning of the anti-virus program it cannot be spread between computers unless people • Appearance of new icon on desktop exchange infected files over a network or share an infected floppy diskette. Viruses can be written in The above points are also indicators that the computer numerous computer programming languages including may have been infected by worms and Trojan horses. assembly language, C, C++, Java, Scripting languages, and macro programming languages. The world was The Characteristics of Computer Virus (Zahri and realized the impact of computer virus in 2000. I LOVE Ahmad, 2003) YOU virus spread throughout the world causing billions of dollars in damages in different countries in 2000. It was The following are some of the characteristics of computer believed that, the source of this virus was traced in viruses: Khan, 3 i. Size: The size of the program code required for from one computer to another computer. Worms are also computer viruses are small. computer programs as computer viruses that are capable ii. Versatility: This is another type of characteristics. This of replicating copies of themselves via network is the ability to generically attack a different variety of connections. The worm can infect as many machines as applications. possible on the network, rather than spreading many iii. Propagation: Once a computer virus has affected a copies of itself on a single computer, as a computer virus program and whenever this affected program is running does. A worm infects a target system only once, after the then the virus is able to spread to other programs and initial infection, the worm attempts to spread to other files accessible to the computer system. machines on the network. Worm can spread much more iv. Effectiveness: Computer viruses have far-reaching rapidly than viruses because computer worms do not and catastrophic effect on their victims, which includes reply on humans to copy them from computer to the total destroy of data, programs and even operating computer. Computer worm can run itself without any systems. human involvement. It is possible that if only one v. Functionality: Computer Viruses have a wide variety computer worm is transferred then there will be of functionality in computer virus program. Some viruses thousands of worms in a computer. Virus need a host are programmed to damage or delete or corrupt files and program to run and the virus runs as port of the host even to destroy operating system and some virus program, a worm can spread even in the absence of a programs are spread themselves to applications without host program. Worms can spread from one computer to attacking data files or operating system activities. another computer without the need of human running a x. Persistence: After detection, the recovery of data and program (Rajesh et al., 2015, Wajeb, 2011). even system operation has been difficult and time consuming. How do Computer Worms Spread in Computer Classification of Computer Viruses (Wajeb, 2011 and There are many ways to spread the computer worms H. Sharvan Kumar) (Available: https://antivirus.comodo.com/blog/comodo- news/computer-worm-virus/). Computer viruses are classified by the type of file or disk that the virus infects: Email: Email is the one of the most common ways for computer worms to spread. Worms can spread through Boot Virus: These viruses attach themselves to floppy email attachment. Once a machine has been infected, diskettes and hard drives. When a user boot from an then worm is able to replicate itself by emailing itself to infected floppy diskette or hard drive, the virus is everyone in your address book or replying to emails in activated and the computers become infected. your inbox automatically. Application virus: These types of viruses spread from Operating System Vulnerabilities: Mostly operating one application to another on the computer system. system has its vulnerabilities and some worms are File Virus: These types of virus infect executable files. specifically coded to take the advantage of these weak These are written in machine code (0 or 1) due to these points. reasons also called binary file virus. They are able to Instant Messaging: Now a day’s Modern chat systems infect over networks.
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