Fizzled out computer Viruses leave a lasting impact in the IT world

Not all viruses are bad!! For the present security scenario is in reality an offshoot of fizzled out viruses etching a solid foundation for inception of new age security systems and applications. Yes, even though nowhere near the potency level of the Sasser, MyDoom or Storm Worm, these viruses were developed with the sole aim of creating a self-replicating program rather than one leading to a data loss.

Creeper

Brought to life in 1971 by BBN employee Bob Thomas, the creeper virus is considered as the very first example of a computer worm. Self-replicating in nature and non-destructive to data, Creeper was initially designed for testing the effectiveness of any code. Technically not considered to be a virus due to its rather passive nature, Creeper never ever ended up taking advantage of an exploit on the DEC PDP-10 TENEX systems it came into contact with.

Elk Cloner

Discovered in 1981 by Rich Skrenta, the Elk Cloner is considered to be the world’s first boot sector virus. The virus was first discovered in floppy disks used for booting up the OS, thus leaving it highly vulnerable to attacks. And from here on at any point in time, if a user was to end up booting the OS from an infected floppy, the virus eventually ended up copying itself into a computer’s memory. Whilst the code was not malicious in its orientation, the user would always end up seeing a poem on the 50th boot. Another first scored by the virus was not only did it specifically target the boot sector but it also ended up spreading itself in the wild i.e. outside an environment it was originally written in.

Brain

Amongst the very first computer virus to be written in 1986 for MS-DOS, the Brain ended up affecting floppy disks, more specifically the boot sector of the DOS File Allocation Table (FAT). It did so by moving the real boot sector elsewhere and marking it as “bad”. Once done, a copy of the virus replaced the real boot sector but hard drives were specifically avoided.

SCA

Another first, the SCA was written in 1987 by the “Swiss Cracking Association” or “Mega-Mighty SCA”. The group mostly specialized in removing copy protection from floppies and enabling the SCA target the boot sector of write-enabled disks. The virus not only affected write-enabled floppies but also ruined custom boot blocks used by games. The SCA virus eventually also led the same group to release a first of its kind Amiga virus scanner for removing the infection.

Morris Worm

With a source code preserved on a dusty floppy in the Boston Museum of Science, the Morris Worm is amongst the most famous outbreaks in history – overtly due to a mistake made by its author. In fact, the Morris worm was the first to spread via the Internet and was known to exploit known vulnerabilities in the UNIX operating system. The worm discovered in 1988 in spite of not being considered to be malicious tried to gather information about the size of the Internet. But then what made the worm such an issue was its method of spreading, re-infecting every 1 in 7 PC claiming to be already infected.

Leap

Leap, also sometimes known as the Oompa-Loompa virus was the first to infect Apple’s cherished OS. Not a full-blown outbreak, the virus didn’t get transferred via Internet. At the same time, it also ended up proving no matter how tight the security is there are always going to be potential vulnerabilities. Leap as a virus would always be considered to amongst low threat viruses, albeit at the same time a world-changing one. antivirus.pccare247.com/

Four Knights in shining armor ready to defend your PC 24X7

The yearning for openness and ease of access ends up coming with a price. And precisely it is this same need for having the world at our fingertips has led to an exponential increase in cyber crime. With each new advance, criminals and rogue nation states are getting emboldened with opportunities to steal, manipulate, disrupt and destroy.

But not the one to sit back and relax in an effort to thwart these attacks, the security industry has delivered a range of technologies. Whilst, many of such technologies offer limited benefits and have been quickly shelved, others have gone on to become a de facto standard for sprucing up security in any organizational setup.

But then again no matter how big the contingency would be there are four knights which are always willing to defend an organization even in the most contingent scenarios. Popularly comprising of:

·         Firewalls

·         Intrusion Prevention Products

·         Anti Virus Software

·         Web Gateways

Gearing up to mount an effective defense at your behest

All PC users know an effective defense against an incoming threat would go a long way in keeping their PC up and running. So, in this regards, as it goes what better way would be there do the same than to spruce up the defenses by means of anything but:

Firewalls

Firewalls are configured with the sole purpose of strictly limiting which systems can communicate with internal systems and what ports could be used for communications. They shield systems and services not generally considered as accessible and otherwise known to be vulnerable. However, in spite of being considered as a necessity for most organizations, firewalls are completely blind when it comes to preventing any targeted and zero-day malware attacks.

Network Intrusion Prevention Systems

Network intrusion prevention systems (IPS) and intrusion detection systems (IDS) have been developed to address any firewall’s visibility and granularity limitations. To filter out attacks, IPS solutions inspect network communications and try to understand various application data being transmitted. Earlier IDS solutions performed passive monitoring, thoroughly analyzed network traffic and identified attacks based on signatures of known exploits. But then again as IDS morphed into IPS, these solutions could not prevent attacks in which signatures ended up matching a known exploit.

Antivirus

Every antivirus application ends up maintaining a large database of known threats. Should at any time a signature of a threat be identified on a system file, it quarantines or removes that file. Here once again, security teams would be required to use a reactive solution for identifying threats well in advance. But then again somewhere down the line as advanced malware and other threats increasingly focused on unknown threats and became more dynamic, an antivirus solution became completely redundant in combating such threats.

Web Gateways

While Web gateways provided some initial security value, attackers have shifted tactics. They have moved to completely dynamic and obfuscated models of both attack delivery and malware communication, rendering lists of malicious Web sites obsolete. Consequently, just as Web gateways started to be widely adopted, they became outmoded from a security perspective. While these technologies still have utility in enforcing HR policies limiting employee Web browsing, in combating modern attacks, Web gateways have been relegated to an increasingly marginal security role. Then again the same is also true of antivirus and other technologies due to a radical shift in tactics adopted cyber criminals.

Computers get a shiver down their spine with five deadliest viruses of all time

‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ has its own online ‘Avatar’ and this time around it is in the form of five deadly viruses PC users would have ever faced. Deadly, Menacing, Ominous as metaphors would also end up coming short in giving an account of mayhem these viruses have unleashed on hapless PC users.   

Death Knell for a PC comes in innumerous forms

Viruses have many forms, stretching from problematic worms spreading like wildfire to backdoor entrances caused by Trojan horse imposters, they are all geared up to break down every PC’s defense mechanism. But then again, discussing about all viruses is a farfetched scenario, so here I would at best enlighten you about only 5 computer viruses which have over time unleashed ‘hell’ on the web.

Well, what are you waiting for go ahead and fortify your PC’s defense mechanism for the going is certainly going to get ugly.

The Evil 5 

Klez

Released in the online world on October 2001, the Klez virus spreads via email sent from an infected recipient’s email address. To a large extent highly malicious in its intent, the Klez turned up the heat an extra notch. Klez was in fact one of the first viruses to spoof email addresses, replacing the address in the “From” field with any address it so pleased. In a way making detection a difficult prospect as users ended up getting infected via their email address books. Klez as a virus was instrumental in exploiting vulnerability in Internet Explorer’s Trident rendering agent (also used in Outlook and Outlook Express) to wreak its havoc.

SQL Slammer Or Sapphire

SQL Slammer or otherwise known as Sapphire targeted Microsoft’s SQL Server and Desktop Engine database software while at the same time initiating a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack on various targets. Within minutes of infecting the first server, Slammer began doubling its number of infected machines every few seconds. The ATM outlets of Bank of America ended up bearing the brunt of this virus. At the same time, the city of Seattle was unable to take 911 calls for a period and clients travelling via Continental Airlines ended up experiencing ticketing and check-in hassles. The total damages caused by the virus were estimated to the tune of nearly 1 billion dollars.

MyDoom

‘MyDoom’ started making an appearance in inboxes across the globe in January 2004 and soon became one of the fastest worms to spread across web. Email messages containing the worm were often masked as delivery failures, prompting many to open and investigate the message. On a subsequent click of the attached file the worm would send itself to email addresses found in the local address book while at the same time leaving its replicated version in KaZaa’s shared folder. The knock-out effect of the virus resulted in placing a severe load on services like Yahoo and Google, thus slowing down a PC user’s web search by a long way. Further, the worm ended up carrying two payloads – one was a backdoor entrance allowing an intruder to control the infected computer and another one was a DDoS attack on the SCO group.

Sasser and Netsky

Considered to be amongst one of the most famous outbreaks ever to come into news, Sasser and Netsky are famous not only for their astonishing effectiveness but have been traced back to a 17-year-old German teenager called Sven Jaschan. In spite of being separate viruses, the similarities in the code linked both the viruses to the same individual. Developer whose name was given up by a friend once Microsoft issued a $250,000 bounty. Tried as a minor Sven received a 21-month suspended sentence (and well of course a flurry of job offers from premier security firms).

Storm Worm

Distributed in email messages with a subject line, “230 dead as storm batters Europe”, the Storm Worm as a nasty Trojan horse infected a user’s machine with a malware as and when it became active. Over time, the virus has also been seen masquerading behind other news-inspired subject lines. During its nascent stage, the virus ended up spreading at an incredible rate, with one analyst pointing out the company had detected over 200,000 emails containing links to the virus over a period of just days. To know more about virus  or PC threads just visit here: http://www.pccare247.com/virus-removal.html

How to make online criminals bite the dust?

Geeks, Freaks, Nerds and Weirdos are terms one would associate with a person boasting of an exceptionally high IQ quotient. Sadly, the same qualities would also describe hackers looking to exploit any cyber threat; be it a data breach in a network, data leakage by employees, or extracting data from a lost laptop or a mobile device.

Watch Out!! You may be in line next

With diversity of security attacks recording an unexceptional high across the globe, it is becoming an uphill task for small and medium-sized businesses to assemble the right in-house resources for protecting themselves. So, much so that there has been an uptick in the number of court cases where SMBs (Small and Medium-sized Businesses) were even robbed of six-figure amounts by cyber thieves.

Scared!! Don’t be!! For as they do say prevention is better than cure, I would recommend you to not to jump the gun and instead stick to these 8 simple credos:

• Employing a dedicated PC for financial matters related to online banking and bill pay. Refraining from using the same node for sending, receiving emails or surfing the Web. For as it goes Web exploits and Malicious E-mails are considered as two key infection vectors for malware.
• Taking care and being extra cautious while clicking on links or attachments within emails. Even if you do end up recognizing the sender, confirm the email is authentic before clicking on any links or attachments.
• Reconcile bank statements on a regular basis with an online bank account or credit-card for immediately identifying abnormal transactions indicative of an account takeover.
• Cautioning employees against visiting small, hosted websites featuring community forums related to sports, computer games and anything deemed suspicious. All because a majority of community forums are hosted by ISP’s not really serious about securing their portal.
• Put security protections in place throughout the organization and install regular updates for applications meant to boost the computer’s OS.
• While visiting a website observe the quality of the site. If the site appears to be quickly put together, lack a browsing disclaimer, it indicates the authors are not liable to any danger to the PC.
• Be cautious about installing any software (especially software such as download accelerators, spyware removal tools). Don’t click on pop ups asking for a download or execution of otherwise privileged operations. Often such software and pop-ups are malware embedded.
• Select your anti-virus vendor with a lot of due deliberation, ensuring the application not only provides coverage for key threats but also responds quickly when threats are introduced. Trial versions of the application are a strict NO! Since, viruses introduced after a trial version would end up having an unhindered access to a PC. www.pccare247.com