Virus Galore

A lot of people have some knowledge to what a computer virus is but they have a very limited amount on the subject. I think this is something that many people need to know about and they should read this to better protect themselves because I am going to go in depth about them and how to prevent them as best as possible.

To start off, a computer virus is like the flu. It enters into your body without your permission and sometimes with your permission. A computer virus can enter your computer through an Internet website that you didn’t know contained it, and the flu can enter your body from walking by someone. The other method is that you may bring it on yourself when you open an attachment in your email which will load the virus into your computer. You can get the flu by going to a country that has been established of being flu-like. Viruses can spread from computer to computer in some form of an executive code. Most viruses have an extension of .exe which executes code that set several functions into motion. For instance, when someone clicks an executive file that is a malicious, the program can run for hours and even days recording every keystroke that you type which makes everything you do on the computer at risk. So if you have a virus, it has the potential to copy your passwords, bank account information, emails, and anything else that you do. A virus is also referred to as malware, adware, and spyware.

Viruses can be transferred from any removable device like a floppy disk, CD, DVD, or even the most common, a USB drive. When someone thinks of computer worms or Trojan horses, they think it is a virus and it is technically different. These are more of a computer worm infection which can exploit security vulnerabilities which spread itself to other computer without needing to be transferred as a part of a host. But a Trojan horse is a program that appears harmless but has a hidden agenda that can cause much damage to the computer.

A virus can attach itself to an actual software program that is legitimate. So when the program that you think is safe is run, it will start the virus. For the virus to replicate itself, it must be permitted to execute the code and write it to the memory which is done by clicking on an executable program. So how do these viruses hide themselves so we cannot just see them on our desktop or in one of our Document folders? Well the virus can attach itself the unused areas of the executive program; this is called a cavity virus. Some of the examples of cavity viruses are the CIH Virus or the Chernobyl virus. The name alone says that they cannot be a good thing. Sometimes when you go to the task manager by clicking “Ctrl + Alt + Del” you can see the process that is running on your computer at that moment. Well, a virus can avoids being detected by killing the task that is attacking. People who create viruses try to make sure that they are never found. Many viruses use stealth technology which trys to trick the anti-virus program by intercepting its request to the operating system. So it hides itself by intercepting the anti-virus software’s request to read the file and passing the request to the virus, instead of the operating system.

The best way to get rid of a virus is to do a system restore which restores the registry and critical system files to a previous checkpoint. Many people think that just because they restart the computer when a problem happens that it will fix it and this is in no manner true. The system restore feature saves the files to a separate partition on your hard drive so when you can load the operating system from a different part of the hard drive that doesn’t contain the virus. But like I have said earlier, many people develop viruses that make it difficult to get rid of like the “CiaDoor” virus. This virus will disable important tools and resources like the Task Manager and the command prompt. The only way that you can fix this problem, is just to reinstall the operating system. It reformats the operating system hard drive partition and installs everything back to the way when it was purchased. It is like a brand new computer then. This method is guaranteed to remove and viruses, spyware, and malware. But the con to this is having to reload the software programs, reconfiguring everything, and restoring the users preferences.

Here are some really good virus programs. This information is taken from here:

• Norton Internet Security 2009

Symantec's antivirus products have historically always provided excellent detection and removal of malware. On the downside, that protection came at the price of often crippling system performance. That's now a thing of the past. Performance overhauls are the hallmark of Norton Internet Security 2009, which features 'pulse updates' to deliver more frequent and thus smaller signature updates, whitelisting to streamline scan times, and a lighter, sleeker footprint that installs in mere minutes.

• Avira AntiVir PersonalEdition Premium

AntiVir is a consistent leader in independent antivirus tests. Avira's AntiVir PersonalEdition Premium is a low-impact, easy to use virus scanner that also the ability to make an antivirus rescue CD for your system. Also includes WebGuard to protect against malicious or compromised websites. Five euros of each purchase is automatically donated to the Auerbach Foundation, a non-profit that supports various charity and community-related services. AntiVir PersonalEdition Premium should be used in conjunction with a firewall.

• McAfee VirusScan Plus

McAfee VirusScan Plus is an ideal candidate for those seeking an antivirus/firewall combination without all the bloat of traditional Internet security suites. McAfee VirusScan Plus makes an easy job of removing adware and spyware, something not all antivirus products deliver. SiteAdvisor service is including, helping to guard against malicious websites.

• Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal

Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal offers excellent antivirus protection, perhaps unsurpassed in its ability to unpack and scan compressed files - something that trips up a lot of other vendors. Should be used in conjunction with a firewall.

• Panda Antivirus Pro 2009

Panda Antivirus Pro 2009 combines antivirus, antispyware, antiphishing and a firewall with its highly touted behavior-based TruPrevent Technology. License covers use on up to three computers and includes free tech support via email (telephone support options are also available).

• BitDefender Antivirus Plus

Softwin's BitDefender Professional protects against viruses, spyware, and instant messaging threats, as well as offering firewall rules to block undesirable traffic and a privacy gateway to keep your identity and preferences private while surfing the Internet

• Eset Nod32

Nod32 features a small footprint, low performance hit, and fast scan speeds, providing focused virus protection ideal for gamers or those with an older PC. Should be used in conjunction with a firewall.

• AVG Anti-Malware

AVG Anti-Malware combines traditional virus protection with adware and spyware scanning, in a low impact footprint ideal for resource-strained PCs or those who just want the best performance possible out of their computers. Free tech support is available via email and the standard license includes two years of protection. Should be used in conjunction with a firewall.

• G Data AntiVirusKit (AVK)

AntiVirusKit (AVK) provides a double layer of protection, bundling two of the best antivirus engines - Kaspersky and BitDefender - under a single, easy-to-use console. You'll want to bolster G Data's AVK with a firewall.

• F-PROT Antivirus

F-PROT Antivirus for Windows offers a feature that's increasingly harder to find - it includes a command-line scanner that can be used to create a rescue CD for scanning the system in Safe Mode. This is a particularly effective way to remove stubborn resuscitators. Firewall not included.

Those are some really good programs but I use Trend Micro PC-Cillin and I think it is the best. It finds the viruses very quickly and removes them without slowing down the computer.

If you have any questions then please send me a comment or email.

Twit'er Down

Okay, so I got a message from my dad today saying that Twitter was under a cyber attack. I was like are you serious so I went to Twitter and I could not and still cannot get to the site.So I went to Yahoo.com to see if they had something on there home page because they usually have the most recent information there but they didn't have it. Well, I know that my dad watches CNN a lot so I went to CNN.com and there was an article about it.

They do not know who the group is that is performing the attacks. How can someone crash a website? Well, since I own a business building and hosting websites then this is something I should know and if I didn't then I would be questioned. The answer is that someone has hacked through the firewall of Twitter and had overloaded the site with tons of information. If the servers are unable to handle all the request then the site is forced to shutdown until it is fixed. These things can take a while to fix if there are major viruses in the system or Trojans. Usually the larger sites like Facebook or Myspace have done many things to help prevent these things from happening.

I have a Twitter account but am not very fond of it. Every now and then I will log on just so I will remember my password. I occasionally update my status but I rarely do it. I feel that it is just a rip-off off Facebook's status update. Why would you want to go to Twitter to update a status when you could use Facebook to update your status and so much more?

I feel that the Internet is going to be the new war frontier because everything is done via the Internet now days. You do your banking, e-mail, shopping, selling, gather information, networking, and many more things. When someone cripples the Internet then they can take a lot of power. This sounds wrong but is it intended, but when you kill people, it is more of a temporary thing and can be handled. When you control the Internet and have the power of the worlds largest form of communication, then you hold a lot greater advantage than bombing a train station. Many of us including myself use online banking and do online shopping rather it be eBay or Froogle. When you do anything on the Internet rather it be typing a blog or buying something, you are at risk of someone using a key logger on your computer and seeing everything that you type. Everyone thinks that going to Best Buy and buying some software program like Norton will prevent this, but in fact it only just makes it a little bit harder.

There is nothing that you can really do to prevent it. There is always going to be someone smarter who is able to break through the Internet security. They actually pay people to hack into system and find the flaws in them. These are called ethical hacking and are very important to the process. Malicious hacking is when someone hacks with the intent to steal or harm someone. Without these people ethically hacking, the companies are able to fix the worms and loop-holes in there system making it complex for hackers to penetrate there system.

When your computer or virus program says it needs to update something, then do it! When there is an attack, patches are created to help prevent it on other computers. These are call definitions sometimes depending on the type of problem. The more you do the updates and the more you update you virus/spyware program then the harder it will be to have you information stolen.

So I am ending this saying that everyone needs to protect themselves on the Internet and don't put anything on the Internet that you wouldn't want used against you. If someone wants information about you, they will find a way to do it and the easiest way is the Internet. A lot of younger people can do some hacking that an older person would think would be very difficult.