A computer virusis a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer without the permission or knowledge of the owner. The term "virus" is also commonly but erroneously used to refer to other types of malware, adware, and spyware programs that do not have the reproductive ability. A true virus can only spread from one computer to another (in some form of executable code) when its host is taken to the target computer; for instance because a user sent it over a network or the Internet, or carried it on a removable medium such as a floppy disk, CD, DVD, or USB drive. Viruses can increase their chances of spreading to other computers by infecting files on a network file system or a file system that is accessed by another computer. It attaches itself to an existing program to which may be transfer through medium that may infect other computers. Similarly, Worms are programs that can replicate itself to infect nodes but it does this with or without user intervention. Although worms has least damage but when it is ignored it may shutdown any network operations.
Here are some of the known viruses/worms that struck the world and create operation disruption among the leading establishments and companies that depends on internetworking:
Conficker, also known as Downadup or Kido, is the latest super virus to spread around the Internet and has security experts in a panic. When last we checked, about a week ago, Conficker had already spread to 9 million PCs, with little sign of slowing. Now it has infected at least 10 million PCs and experts believe there may be up to 350 million vulnerable computers out there.
The worm isn’t just exploiting a networking hole, however; it features a sophisticated method of cracking administrator passwords, making it difficult to remove, and also copies itself to USB drives so that it can spread even when the online flaw is plugged.
There were series of attacks on the net after conficker.
Conficker A was detected on November 21, 2008 by Microsoft. Conficker B was repoted to Microsoft on December 29, 2008. Conficker C, February 20, 2009. Conficker D, March 4, 2009. Conficker E April 28, 2009. Some rumors says that the worm originated in Germany. The damages was first felt in Europe and travels through MS IIS towards US.
Here are the estimated effect of the Worm Europe and US according to IBM.
The affected hosts of the virus were vast as shown below:
Another virus to riddle the Internet in 2001 was called Nimda. Its name is derived from ‘Admin’, the default sign in name for most databases, which is simply pronounced backwards to read Nimda.
According to TruSecure CTO Peter Tippett , it took only 22 minutes from the moment Nimda hit the Internet, before it became top on the list of reported attacks.
Nimda’s primary target was Internet servers, and although it could infect home PCs, it’s real aim was to bring Internet traffic to a standstill.
Similar to the Klez virus, Nimda was be transmitted by e-mail and created a back-door into the victims machine. The spread of the Nimda virus ate up many systems resources causing the network servers to crash. Just like the Code Red virus, Nimda quickly became a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.
Melissa Virus, also known as “Mail issa”. Founded on March 26, 1999 and was created by David L Smith named after an exotic dancer in Florida. Melissa shut down Internet mail system that got clogged with infected e-mails propagating from the virus. Melissa was not originally designed for harm, but it overflowed servers and caused unplanned problems.
It was one of the first distributed in the Usenet discussion group alt.sex. The virus was inside a file called “list.DOC” titled “Here is that document you asked for, don’t show it to anybody else”, which contained passwords that allow access into several pornographic websites.
It act similarly with the sowar worm only it access automatically one pornographic site “redtube.com” . The virus’ effect was largely enough to destroy registries of some e-mailing programs. The US Federal Government became highly interested in Smith’s work after the virus “wreaked havoc on government and private sector networks”.Smith was subsequently taken to court and after a lengthy trial he received a 20 month jail sentence and $5,000 fine. The court also banned him from accessing computer network without court authorization. The Melissa virus caught the attention of the public after its devastating effect.
I LOVE YOU Virusappears through internet after Melissa in May 4 of 2000. It originated from the Philippines and was speculated that the virus was programmed by Onel de Guzman. It travelsvia internet by e-mail with a form of a love letter from a secret admirer. The e-mail has an attachment that carries the virus titled “LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs”. The VBS ( Visual Basic Scripting) extension pointed out as the language used to create the worm.
The ILOVEYOU virus had a wide range of attacks, it could:
Copy itself several times and hide copies in several folders on the victims hard disk drive.
Add new files to the victims registry.
Replace several different kinds of files with copies of itself.
Send itself through Internet Chat programs and e-mail.
Downloaded and execute a password-stealing application file called WIN-BUGSFIX.EXE. The application then sent private data to the hacker.
According to some, the damages estimate $5.5 to $10 billion. At the time, the Filipino authorities had no computer espionage or sabotage laws, so tried de Guzman on charges of theft.
Citing a lack of evidence, the Filipino authorities eventually dropped the charges against de Guzman, who would neither confirm nor deny his responsibility for the virus.
Code Red Virus released on July 13, 2001. It attacked computers running in Microsoft IIS web server. The virus was discovered by Marc Maiffret and Ryan Fermeh of eEye Digital security they named the virus after a softdrink (Pepsi Mountain Dew CodeRed).
The virus points out the reference coming from China. Specifically it carries the code contained the phrase “Hacked by Chinese”. After two weeks another code red virus appears on August 4, 2001, Code Red II, it has the same injection process with first but has a completely different payload.
Both of these viruses are exploiting the operating system vulnerability found in Windows 2000 and Windows NT. The weakness in the OS was down to a buffer overflow problem that caused the system to overwrite memory when the machine breached its buffer threshold.
The original Code Red worm initiated a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on the White House. This caused all the computers in the White House infected with Code Red, to contact the White House’s Web servers at the same time, overloading the machines.
Windows 2000 machines were the hardest hit, once infected with the Code Red 2 worm these computer’s would no longer obey the user. This happens because the worm creates a back-door into the computer’s operating system allowing a remote user to gain access and control the machine. The person behind the virus can then gather private data from the user and can also use the infected computer to commit crimes. This means that the victim not only has to face the problems of having an infected computer, but they may also have to deal with hassle of being suspected of committing a crime they didn’t commit.
Windows NT machines, while also being vulnerable to Code Red, were not effected as bad. The virus caused Web servers to crash more often but apart from that, the effects were not nearly as bad as those experienced by Windows 2000 users. Microsoft release a patch to fix the troublesome security vulnerability. With the patch installed Code Red could no longer infect the computer, but the patch didn’t remove viruses from infected computers - victims had to do that themselves.
There were over 400,000 hosts were infected in less than 14 hours after its release. It has the virus spread rate of2,000 new hosts infected each minute. According to David Moore (from USCSD CSE) 43% of the total infected hosts were in the United States, 11% in Korea, 5%in China, 4% Taiwan. The .NET Top Level Domain(TLD) accounted for 19 % of the total compromised machines. Followed by .COM with 14%, .EDU with 2 %, 0.04% on .MIL and 0.05% on .GOV. The costs of damages reaches to $1.2 billion on the Code Red and $8.7 billion on the Code Red II.
There was no particular news of action to who is responsible. The source was China but the difficulty to point out who created the virus due to lack of evidence. The Government on both sides kept it classified until now.
* It is a person having a job or engaged to one of its learned profession. * Paid or earning his living to do such tasks specified by its profession. * An individual who is engaged or engaging in as a professional or means of livelihood.
When is a person a professional?
A professional is mostly recognized or determined upon how he/she looks, talks, acts and works the given task. Nowadays, society in the Philippines does not emphasize the importance of professionalism. Example; a student may graduate from high school even if he cannot really read or cannot understand what he is reading. We mostly accept below good output most of the times.
When Professionalism is evaluated, people may be having some difficulties. Professionals are judged according to the following:
If a person cannot meet this criteria he maybe considered to be an amateur or just an advance user.
What is an IT PROFESSIONAL?
A person who is engaged in information technology, which of course has more advanced knowledge with computers and its capabilities. Although, he must have ethics according to code of professionals. Hackers and alike may not be consider to be a professional.
