Viruses: the different types

Viruses: the different types

Viruses: the different types

* The species in a row with brief explanations
* Macro Virus
* Virus Software
* Boot Sector Virus
* Trojan Horse
* Viruses in general


Species in a row with brief explanations
Very dangerous:

* Trojan horses masquerade as a good program, but can be damaging.
* Stealth viruses hide the damage, only when they are removed, the issue is.
* Boot Sector Viruses are on a boot disk, startup disk with the virus is active.
* Software software viruses infect course, if the program is opened, the virus does that.
* Hybrid viruses use several techniques to attack your computer.


Dangerous:

Eg * Macro viruses infect Word and Excel files by throwing letters together.
* Tunneling viruses use a technique to whether to attack the anti-virus program notes.
* Sparse infector eg only be active Friday the thirteenth, so as to draw the virus to escape.
* Encrypt viruses can encode and decode hiding to infect.
* Retro viruses infect the anti-virus software so it can not boot or the virus itself can not recognize.
* Polymorphic viruses change constantly in shape to resemble a regular file.


Only last:

* Hoaxes are false virus alerts and usually occurs in chain letters.
* Worms can spread rapidly, it constantly tries to copy.


Macro Virus
This virus infects Microsoft Office documents and can easily spread to other documents. Some viruses spread through Outlook Express, the popular e-mail program from Microsoft, without the user being aware of it. In another e-mail programs like Eudora, Netscape Messenger, Mozilla Tunderbird, ... viruses can not spread. A macro virus is written in Visual Basic, the scripting language for macros of Microsoft Office. Normal macros are not viruses, but it is possible to create malicious.

Virus Software
This virus will front a nesting program. If the program starts, the first active virus. It has time to infect other programs. They are very dangerous because the virus is not directly across the program and scan the damage is already done before it is discovered. You must be very careful with freeware, some programmers deliberately infect their software.

Boot Sector Virus
Boot Sector Viruses install on boot disks. If the computer is started with the floppy, which normally takes the computer and "give orders" to correctly start. If the boot disk is infected, the virus-free game. It copies itself to the boot sector of the disk. The boot sector of hard drive allows the computer startup and contains information about what should be loaded, the file structure, ...
If the virus still has free play, it changes the BIOS. Thus, in that only the hard drive may be started: you can not boot disk. The virus will only be initiated by the operating system and so could not help it. Fortunately there are now virtually no disks, let alone boot floppy, which uses the virus is rare. Why a opstartcd-ROM is no risk? These should only danger as that would be writable CD-ROM and you use it in a CD-RW drive. Because the CD-ROM must nevertheless somehow become infected.

Trojan Horse
Trojan Horses or Trojans are very dangerous programs: they look like innocent programs, screensavers or updates but if you install them, do it their way. They can modify or delete the file structure and * ports opened. Most Trojan horses do the first: they damage files and software, but they did not copy (this is exceptional). There are also backdoor trojans. They do no damage but are able to open ports *. Then someone can manage your computer completely

* What are ports? A computer is connected to other devices through ports. Eg. the internet, it is a device server. If you surf you're a customer who goes shopping: a client and a server. Normally servers may be viewed by clients.