- Home
- About Us & Project Introduction
- What Are "Cyber Security" and "Cyber Attack"?
- Why Does Cyber Security Matter?
- International and Local Cooperation on Cyber Attacks
- Simple Steps Towards Enhanced Cyber Security
- Educating the Public
- Video Reviews & Useful Resources
- Bibliography
- Acknowledgements
Computer Viruses
A computer virus is a program that infects a program, and when run, continues to spread and infect other programs on the same computer. They occasionally carry some sort of data cargo, known as a 'payload' that can carry out other malicious actions such as disabling your anti-virus software.
The term 'Computer Virus' is often mistakenly used to refer to all forms of malware, especially by the mainstream press.
The first widespread computer virus on personal computers was the Brain virus, written by two Pakistani brothers, Basit and Amjad. Quite amusingly, it also contained messages with the full address of their company's headquarters in Lahore. The brothers had written the virus to scare those who pirated their medical software, and to discourage others from following suit - because of the widespread distribution of pirated copies of Basit and Amjad's software, Brain became notable amongst many computer users in the west. (You can watch Miko Hyponnen's visit to the Brothers here.)
As viruses require human action to propagate, they were previously sent through email (in the 1990s to be precise) as an attachment. In recent years, however, this mechanism of propagation has been defeated by automatic scanning of mail attachments by email providers and anti-virus software on computers.
Today, they are mainly spread through USB drives and websites.
Quick Reference
Beal, V. (2010, June 29). The difference between a computer virus, worm and trojan horse. Retrieved from http://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Internet/2004/virus.asp
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The term 'Computer Virus' is often mistakenly used to refer to all forms of malware, especially by the mainstream press.
The first widespread computer virus on personal computers was the Brain virus, written by two Pakistani brothers, Basit and Amjad. Quite amusingly, it also contained messages with the full address of their company's headquarters in Lahore. The brothers had written the virus to scare those who pirated their medical software, and to discourage others from following suit - because of the widespread distribution of pirated copies of Basit and Amjad's software, Brain became notable amongst many computer users in the west. (You can watch Miko Hyponnen's visit to the Brothers here.)
As viruses require human action to propagate, they were previously sent through email (in the 1990s to be precise) as an attachment. In recent years, however, this mechanism of propagation has been defeated by automatic scanning of mail attachments by email providers and anti-virus software on computers.
Today, they are mainly spread through USB drives and websites.
Quick Reference
Beal, V. (2010, June 29). The difference between a computer virus, worm and trojan horse. Retrieved from http://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Internet/2004/virus.asp
Previous Next