When looking and analyzing the differences in what is so different now than it was before, one can not help but notice that in the past decade or maybe a bit more than that, computers have gone from using DOS to using Windows 3.0 and 3.1. Normally, if a file virus is in the memory of DOS, Windows will never even start up. On the other hand, the behavior when infected with a boot virus reacts totally different. Yet if Windows users get infected with a file virus, the Windows system is completely inoperable which forces the hand of the owner/user to have to act to correct the problem. They have to do this in order to be able to use the computer again.

Boot viruses react differently with Windows and the user may not even notice that anything is wrong. Windows will start and operate just as expected but the boot virus will continue to spread infecting everything that is not write protected. Boot viruses live in a place within the computer that only is read when the computer boots up. That is when it loads itself into the memory of your computer. When you start your computer with a floppy disc that is infected, most systems, including Windows are incapable of detecting it.

The big concern is determining if you indeed have detected a boot virus or not. There is a downloadable program called Bootminder, it is free but does accept donations. The purpose is to remind you that you have left a floppy in the A drive before you shut down. This way, you take the floppy and out and it will not be present when you reboot. Therefore you will not become infected. If the entire disc becomes infected and the MBR was altered the entire disk will be unusable. It is much better to used very well updated virus protection.

The best method is obviously prevention however that is much often easier said than done. Prevention is best learned through education. There are many websites available that will scan your computer for various viruses, worms, Trojans, spy ware, and malware. Which one you select will depend on the system that you use and the knowledge that you have gained. Remember the basics about floppy’s and how they are responsible for boot viruses and use always remember to be extra cautious with emails and never open attachments. Finally, always make sure you have the latest and most updated anti virus protection on your computer at all times.

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During the past ten years computer viruses have exploded and are wreaking havoc daily in the lives of personal home computers to worldwide corporate systems. Malware, which is malicious software, affects everyone who has a computer and uses the Internet. Corruption from malware costs billions of dollars annually in loss of profits and fraud. Viruses, worms, or malware copy itself as an attachment with the intention of hopefully crashing your computer system but also enjoys monitoring keystrokes which easily allows for detection of Social Security numbers and other information that you do not want anyone else to have.

Newer malware is created with the intention of financial fraud and so it lurks and sucks out as much information as it can, often going undetected until it is too late. As more and more electronic devices are able to link themselves to the computer, the problem will continue to not only grow, but flourish. The simple truth is that the computer viruses of today are much more sophisticated. You can infest your computer without doing a single thing, not opening an attachment, an email, nothing at all.

A newer form of computer corruption is combined virus attacks. First, the virus has to get into your computer which does not take too much effort whatsoever as it can easily enter through corrupt websites or malicious email. Once it is there the virus unleashes a corrupt code onto your computer which is not even detectable by any antivirus programs. It just sits there, harmless, because it is waiting on its partners to come in and give him a hand in hopes of completely crashing your computer system. While that piece is just sitting there, a second one arrives in a very similar fashion as the first. Now there are two corrupt codes hanging around just waiting for the reinforcements to arrive. The table is being set at this point but nothing has been executed yet.

Reinforcements finally arrive and you will never guess who they are, Microsoft! Computer hackers take advantage of the few bugs that Microsoft programmers did not locate and use them to their advantage by locating them and making Microsoft’s Internet Explorer do things that they are not intended to do such as wake up those corrupt codes that were just hanging around. Now, you have an uninvited guest who has plans that you know nothing about like taking over your administrative privileges, check out all of your files, possibly changing them or sending them off to someone else, or even worse, erasing the whole file content.

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Hackers, in the past, and more than likely in the future can even find a way to disguise email from the master, Microsoft and infect computers worldwide with viruses. Activities such as this make people really wonder exactly who they can really trust. If hackers were able to disguise an email from Microsoft that supposedly included a virus patch and send it off for people from all around the world who actually opened and infected their operating systems immediately with a virus, then they really have astounding capabilities. This happened at a time when people were extremely curious about the patch cycle that Microsoft boasted about. Hackers used the people’s curiosity as a people’s vulnerability.

So when people started to get emails from Microsoft that appeared to be quite authentic with an attachment that included a cumulative patch that was a fix for viruses that had been affecting Internet Explorer, Microsoft Outlook, and Outlook Express, they were more than happy to download. In fact, that download was an executable virus that was capable of replication in mapped drives and network shares. It was the Pinfi virus and it was programmed to do a lot of damage including infecting each and every PE and SCR file on every drive and network share. It was a big one as it was to infect users of Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows ME, and Windows XP. It pretty much socked them all.

This type of occurrence was happening quite often so Microsoft had to go to battle, which they did. They used the best tools available for consumers which are education and information. They taught consumers how Microsoft will and will not notify you. They also informed people that Microsoft will never notify a consumer about virus attacks or any other type of malicious activity until after it has been posted on their website. They also strongly suggested that people refer to their website before opening any mail and if they want to download any of the available tools or fixes to do it right from their legitimate website.

Hackers can be very clever and they pride themselves on the capability to prey on peoples vulnerabilities, which they are generally quite successful at. When they hackers wrote this Microsoft patch virus, they knew what they were doing and they were well aware that the launch of their Trojan virus came just days before Microsoft’s hyped up “patch day” The virus writers included in the subject lines, such things as “Update your Windows Machine” “Urgent Message from Microsoft” or “Important Windows Update.” It even included the Microsoft Windows logo and a link. So it is very important to follow the instructions from Microsoft and retrieve any information from their uncorrupt website. Although this was a couple of years ago, the scariest thought is how much more knowledgeable hackers are today.

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The worm or virus uses the technique of “spoofing” where at random it chooses addresses from infected computers and can send you a tainted email with virus included and make it look like you sent it to yourself. The truth is that you are equally as likely to receive a “spoofed” email virus from someone you know versus someone you do not know. In the event that you receive an attachment of any kind or from anyone, do not open it but rather put it in a separate folder and email the person back that sent it to you and ask them if they sent an attachment and why.

Social engineering is another word for spoofing. In this process you would for example, get an email from your ISP and they are asking for you to go to another website and change your password. Believe it or not, many people fall for this scam everyday. The worst part is that there is no way to stop spoofed emails, all you can do is proceed with caution and use common sense. If the email looks like it might be fake, is insulting, asks for information, or just doesn’t make any sense then do not open it under any conditions.

Spoofing is sometimes difficult to understand but people do it for a few different reasons such as they are sending spam and do not want to be liable for the anti spam laws and regulations, the email could be threatening or harassing, the email contains a virus and the sender believes you are much more likely to open it if it comes from So you could be sitting at home just reading your emails and you receive one that says your mail was undeliverable. Of course, you open it along with the attachment and it is empty. So you close it and go on about your business.

In the meantime, the virus has just used a spoofing technique and is now running a virus throughout your entire computer. The first thing that it will do is head straight for your email address book and harvest all of the email addresses that it possibly can to infest as many computers as possible.

Although the intention of the virus is to infect as many computers as possible through email corruption, many of these viruses can detect back weeks or months and see every web page that you have visited and steal emails from there as well as your Word files. The possibilities for further virus infection are endless.

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Of course the virus would pretty much function in instant messaging just like it would in email or other sources, through an attachment but most are concerned with the possibility of what is called a blended threat which is a virus that exploits specific software vulnerability. These viruses can get into your machine and spread a virus in record time without you doing anything at all. One major problem is that there are many security holes in the instant messaging systems which leave them completely vulnerable.

The specific danger is that hackers do not normally have access to your programs all day long, leaving them specific strike times for targeting. Normally, you might check your emails quite a few times a day but you just open it to see if anything is new and close out of it until next time. On the other hand, with instant messaging, usually the messenger is open all day but just minimized when not in use. This leaves a much bigger window of opportunity for the virus writers to intrude.

Your buddy list is just an added gift for those with malicious intent, as they will use that and spread the virus faster than lightning. It spreads to everyone in your buddy list and like a chain effect it does the same thing to everyone else on their lists and just keeps going. Normally when you sign into messenger, automatically the vendor will update any patches for security threats but hackers are good and they can quite often get in before the minute or so that it takes the vendor to install the patch.

Many employees for various corporations and businesses use instant messaging during their work day for non related work issues. This poses a problem because if the computer is not designed for the intent of utilizing instant messenger then it will not likely be protected either. Many people believe that there should be a crack down on employees who misuse instant messaging while working for non related work business. Otherwise, businesses need to protect their systems which will require them to plug in anti virus protection for instant messaging purposes, do not use free IM providers, and find a provider that uses encryption and uses a very extensive testing process.

The instant message hackers have even been known to crack into your system and send copies of all of your IM conversations to everyone on your buddy list. That is a thought that most do not even want to think about but it is also a hard cold reality.

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Cell phone viruses are barely even spoken of and most people will say that they have never even heard of them before but the future promises that there will be cell phone viruses that will be just as crippling as computer viruses. In terms of what a cell phone virus is, it is the same thing as a computer virus, an unwanted file that infects your cell phone and replicates itself to other devices. However, a computer virus spreads through email attachments and Internet downloads, a cell phone virus will spread through internet downloads, multimedia messaging service attachments, and Bluetooth transfers. Right now most cell phone viruses come from bogus internet downloads but trailing right behind is the ability to infect phone to phone.

The Symbian operating system accounts currently for almost all of the phone to phone viruses. Because there are so many cell phone service providers is the main reason that the cell phone virus problem has yet to manifest itself. Just give the virus writers a little more time to figure this one out. Another problem that the computer virus writers might be having a difficult time with is the fact that in order to get a cell phone infected, the user has to choose to open a message attachment and download it. Facing these two critical obstacles has left virus writers in dismay as they have yet to succeed.

The only phones that will be at risk are the Smart phones with a Bluetooth connection. Viruses will attack through internet downloads, Bluetooth connections, and MMS. In all of these methods of attack, the virus writer has to get the user to agree to run the infected file one or sometimes even two times but they are up to that challenge as again they will disguise it as something that is sure to catch your eye.

Once in and infected, the cell phone virus is certain to do some damage. It will likely delete all of your contact information and your calendar in your cell phone and send infected messages to all of the contacts that you have. Further, it could lock up some of your phone features or just crash your entire cell phone making it unusable. To date, there have been five recognized cell phone viruses and the last one disabled infected cell phones entirely. The pattern has been that each cell phone virus has gotten worse which will likely be the future pattern as well.

Prevention is the best cure and you should prevent viruses from infecting your cell phone in pretty much the same fashion as you would for your computer.

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Some websites attach a malicious code to their cookies so if you’re lacking security in your browser or have no firewall it’s fairly certain that you will get loaded down with lots and lots of cookies that are full of malware, resulting in a browser virus. Many still wonder who and why these viruses are written. The answer could be one of several factors such as kids testing their computer abilities; they are computer savvy and spend a lot of time on the Internet. Some are high school or college students that have a sincere interest in committing cyber crimes and what is known as cyber vandalism. All virus writers usually excel in math. Some of these virus writers are people who grew up but never grew out of their interest in writing viruses. They are usually part of a network of people who get off on spreading computer viruses to the best of their ability.

Know that we know who is generally responsible, you may be wondering why. Many do it simply for fraud, by writing a group of Trojans; they are able to steal other people’s log in information and passwords to gain access into other people’s Internet resources. Basically it is done as a way to get something for nothing and it is a way to use the Internet for free.

Another way that virus writers operate is to create bot networks or zombie networks that infect computers with identical malicious code. These are generally used as spamming platforms. The hackers have tools that make sure that virus is installed without any consent or knowledge of the user. They are also disguised so that they can not be detected by any anti virus or anti spy ware protection. Virus writers also use their knowledge for financial profit. They hack into Pay Pal accounts and Internet banking systems and steal money.

The Trojans are used to gather all of the pertinent information that is necessary and then it is forwarded to the person in charge. Cyber extortion is also another crime that is committed from virus writers or hackers. In this, they blackmail companies and threaten to attack their entire corporate system if they do not get the revenues that they are asking for. This is called crime ware.

Regardless of the advances that technology makes it seems that someone is always just a quick step either ahead or behind to cause a lot of chaos in the lives of people who rely on the Internet to conduct their daily routines.

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It is believed that the virus writers have actually hidden malicious software at random which would cause anyone to be susceptible to getting a virus by simply viewing the pages. Actually, there have already been several virus reports that have stemmed from use on MySpace. The greatest number of users on MySpace is teenagers but the site is just exploding with growth and accounts for a respectable percentage of all internet traffic. And of course, that just makes it a breeding ground for hackers who have banked on the fact that people have indeed let their guard down.

Online banner advertisements run on MySpace that when clicked on, infect millions with spyware. The banners are always something that is geared right towards the target market that MySpace tends to attract so that the user is much more likely to click on it. They use stuff that teenagers are really interested in, for example, there may be a banner ad that asks for opinions on whether or not a celebrity is pregnant or not or maybe an ad that asks for you to finish the lyrics of a song. This is hitting an area that most teens can simply not pass up and in addition, most have not yet come to the realization that they are not going to get tons of free stuff from clicking in these banner ads.

The Samy virus was one that corrupted MySpace, it was a cross site scripting virus that was designed and written with the intention of spreading across MySpace. This virus carried the goods that were displayed on a users profile that read, “but most of all, Samy is my hero.” When they would view it, out of curiosity of course, they would then become infected. In less than one full day over one million users had clicked too and had become infected. It was one of the fastest spreading viruses ever. After the virus was executed it would result in an automatic friend request to the virus writer, hence, resulting in a chain reaction to everyone else’s profiles and friend requests.

There is no monetary involvement on MySpace however; hackers are finding ways to change that too. They are hijacking accounts and using them to spread bulletin board spam for a monetary profit. The good news is that since, MySpace has stepped up measures that do not allow bad links in user’s profiles to be enabled. This has shown a significant drop in phishing scams and corrupt malware on sites such as and including MySpace.

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Mydoom virus hit the computer world in 94 and infected almost a half a million computers in just one day. It appeared as a normal error message but contained malicious programming. It was a huge outbreak and was recognized worldwide. The main target for this worm was Windows and the message simply read, “This message contains Unicode characters and has been sent as a binary attachment.” Because it sounded intelligent and was not promising nude photos or lucrative money guarantees, it seemed simple enough and most people opened it. By then it was too late, the virus had flourished.

In 99 the Melissa virus landed with a fury. It affected machines with Microsoft Word 97 and Word 2000. It came in the form of an email attachment with a subject line that read, “Important message from (users full name) which again gave the email some validity and the body was in full text and simply said, “Here is the document that you asked for…do not show it to anyone else.” As soon as the virus was executed it immediately lowered the macro settings which left the machine vulnerable because it allowed all macros to run when any future documents were opened with no knowledge to the user. It then checked the register keys for the correct value and if it was not present then it would send the same email to the first fifty people in the users address book. Finally, once the value is added to the registry key then the macro infects the normal.dot template file resulting in any future Word documents being infected.

The final encore was when the minute of the hour matched the day of the month, the macro would insert a final message into a document that stated, “Twenty-two points, triple word score, plus fifty points for using all my letters. Games over. I’m outta here.” The Melissa virus was so powerful that it caused Microsoft as well as many other huge companies to completely shut down their email systems until the virus was contained.

The ILoveYou virus arrived in 2000 and it too, was an email virus. The subject line read, “I love you.” The message read, “Kindly check the attached LOVELETTER coming from me.” You guessed it, as soon as the attachment is opened the worm runs and attaches copies of it and writes an .HTM file. It also manipulates the registry keys and changes any jpg or jpeg files with copies of it instead. Basically, it overwrites every single file. These are a few of the worst viruses that have been dealt with in the past years but most fear that the worst is yet to come.

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Go to your address book just as if you were going to add a new contact and click on new person or add contact. In the window where you would normally type the first name of your contact, instead type an exclamation point followed by 3 zeroes (!000). In the next window it will ask for your new contact’s email address, there you will type in WormAlert. Then just finish it up by clicking add and ok. Because you added an entry of an exclamation point followed by 3 zeroes that entry will go to the very top of your address book.

When a virus goes into your address book it begins with the first entry and works its way down from there. Because the first address is bogus or invalid the mail is simply returned and the virus goes no further. The best news is that you will be notified almost immediately that you had an undeliverable piece of mail so you will know that you have a virus hanging around in your computer.

Another way that computer viruses can attack your computer through the channel of email is when you are sent an email and although you do not know the sender, the subject line is always alluring. It gets your attention usually by tearing at the fiber of the American heart. For example, the subject line might say “World Trade Center” or “Someone has a crush on you”, anything that will get your attention with the hopes that you will open it and once you do, there’s no turning back. You will have just unleashed a demon through your computer and it will wreak havoc until it is found and eliminated. Of course, the moral to that story is NEVER open an email from someone that you do not know.

Be extremely cautious when opening any email that has an attachment. It could be a virus email scam but it could also come from an infected computer and the person never even knew about it. So unless it is essential, do not open any attachments, especially if they end in EXE, VBS, or SCR. Essentially, treat every attachment as if it were infected. Simply delete the email without ever opening the attachment.

Windows, by default usually hides file name extensions which can allow infected emails to be unrecognized as they may show up as pic.jpg, however, you can go to your Windows express and change the hide options to avoid such a problem.

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