COMPUTERVIRUSES-BusinessandComputerScience.pdfVIP

COMPUTER VIRUSES One of the most familiar forms of risk to computer security is the computer virus. A computer virus is a program written by a hacker or cracker designed to perform some kind of trick upon an unsuspecting victim. The trick performed in some cases is mild, such as drawing an offensive image on the screen, or changing all of the characters in a document to another language. Sometimes the trick is much more severe, such as reformatting the hard drive and erasing all the data, or damaging the motherboard so that it cannot operate properly. Types of Viruses Viruses can be categorized by their effect, which include nuisance, data-destructive, espionage, and hardware- destructive. A nuisance virus usually does no real damage, but is rather just an inconvenience. The most difficult part of a computer to replace is the data on the hard drive. The installed programs, the documents, databases, and saved emails form the heart of a personal computer. A data-destructive virus is designed to destroy this data. Some viruses are designed to create a backdoor into a system to bypass security. Called espionage viruses, they do no damage, but rather allow a hacker or cracker to enter the system later for the purpose of stealing data or spying on the work of the competitor. Very rarely, a virus is created that attempts to damage the hardware of the computer system itself. Called hardware-destructive viruses, these bits of programming can weaken or destroy chips, drives, and other components. (Pie Chart) Methods of Virus Operation Viruses can create effects that range from minor and annoying to highly destructive, and are operated and transmitted by a variety of methods. An email virus is normally transmitted as an attachment to a message sent over the Internet. Email viruses require the victim to click on the attachment and cause it to ex