LO 2: Detect and removed

destructive software

BY Abdifetah Eid Ahmed 04/25/2023

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This learning guide is developed to provide you the

necessary information regarding the following
content coverage and topics –
Computer Viruses
Virus Origin, History and Evolution
Virus Infection, Removal and Prevention
Anti-virus Software

BY Abdifetah Eid Ahmed 04/25/2023

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What is a Virus?
Definition
A computer virus is a small software program that is
specifically designed to spread between computers and
hinder basic computer functions.
Viruses are commonly spread through email attachments
or instant messages, so it's never a good idea to open an
attachment from a sender that you are not familiar with.
They can also be inadvertently downloaded through the
Internet, as part of a file or program that might have
come from a questionable website.

BY Abdifetah Eid Ahmed 04/25/2023

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Computer viruses can cause serious damage to a

computer system. They can slow down the
computer's overall performance and lead to a loss of
data that could range from one single file to your
entire hard drive. These viruses have kept pace with
new computer technology, evolving rapidly and
increasing in complexity; however, there are still
many easy and often free ways to eliminate these
destructive programs, while keeping new ones from
invading.

BY Abdifetah Eid Ahmed 04/25/2023

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Here are the different kinds of viruses:

Virus - Can replicate and spread to other
computers. Also attacks other program
Worm - A special type of virus that can replicate
and spread, but generally doesn't attack other
programs
Trojan - Doesn't replicate, but can spread. Doesn't
attack other programs. Usually just a way of
recording and reporting what you do on your PC

BY Abdifetah Eid Ahmed 04/25/2023

 Viruses are split into different categories, depending on what they do. Here are a few
categories of viruses: 6
 Boot Sector Virus
The Boot Sector of a PC is a part of your computer that gets accessed first when
you turn it on. It tells Windows what to do and what to load. It's like a "Things To Do"
list. The Boot Sector is also known as the Master Boot Record. A boot sector virus is
designed to attack this, causing your PC to refuse to start at all! 
 File Virus
A file virus, as its name suggests, attacks files on your computer. Also attacks
entire programs, though.
 Macro Virus
These types of virus are written specifically to infect Microsoft Office documents
(Word, Excel PowerPoint, etc.) A Word document can contain a Macro Virus. You
usually need to open a document in an Microsoft Office application before the virus
can do any harm.
 Multipartite Virus
A multipartite virus is designed to infect both the boot sector and files on your
computer
 Polymorphic Virus
This type of virus alter their own code when they infect another computer. They
do this to try and avoid detection by anti-virus programs.
  
BY Abdifetah Eid Ahmed 04/25/2023
 Virus Origin, History and Evolution
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Virus Origins
Computer viruses are called viruses because they
share some of the traits of biological viruses. A
computer virus passes from computer to computer
like a biological virus passes from person to person.

BY Abdifetah Eid Ahmed 04/25/2023

 Why do they do it?
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 There are at least three reasons.
 The first is the same psychology that drives vandals and arsonists.
Why would someone want to break a window on someone's car, paint signs
on buildings or burn down a beautiful forest? For some people, that seems to
be a thrill. If that sort of person knows computer programming, then he or
she may funnel energy into the creation of destructive viruses.
 The second reason has to do with the thrill of watching things blow up.
Some people have a fascination with things like explosions and car wrecks.
When you were growing up, there might have been a kid in your
neighborhood who learned how to make gunpowder. And that kid probably
built bigger and bigger bombs until he either got bored or did some serious
damage to himself. Creating a virus is a little like that -- it creates a bomb
inside a computer, and the more computers that get infected the more "fun"
the explosion.

BY Abdifetah Eid Ahmed 04/25/2023

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The third reason involves bragging rights, or the

thrill of doing it. Sort of like Mount Everest -- the
mountain is there, so someone is compelled to climb
it. If you are a certain type of programmer who sees a
security hole that could be exploited, you might
simply be compelled to exploit the hole yourself
before someone else beats you to it.

BY Abdifetah Eid Ahmed 04/25/2023

 Virus History
Traditional computer viruses were first widely seen
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in the late 1980s, and they came about because of
several factors.
The first factor was the spread of 
personal computers (PCs). Prior to the 1980s,
home computers were nearly non-existent or they
were toys. Real computers were rare, and they were
locked away for use by "experts." During the 1980s,
real computers started to spread to businesses and
homes because of the popularity of the IBM PC
(released in 1982) and the Apple Macintosh
(released in 1984). By the late 1980s, PCs were
widespread in businesses, homes and college
campuses.
BY Abdifetah Eid Ahmed 04/25/2023
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The second factor was the use of computer bulletin boards.

People could dial up a bulletin board with a modem and download
programs of all types. Games were extremely popular, and so were
simple word processors, spreadsheets and other productivity software.
Bulletin boards led to the precursor of the virus known as the Trojan
horse. A Trojan horse is a program with a cool-sounding name and
description. So you download it. When you run the program,
however, it does something uncool like erasing your disk. You think
you are getting a neat game, but it wipes out your system. Trojan
horses only hit a small number of people because they are quickly
discovered, the infected programs are removed and word of the danger
spreads among users.

Floppy disks were factors in the spread of computer viruses.

BY Abdifetah Eid Ahmed 04/25/2023

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Virus Evolution
Other Threats
Viruses and worms get a lot of publicity, but they
aren't the only threats to your computer's health.
Malware is just another name for software that
has an evil intent. Here are some common types of
malware and what they might do to your infected
computer:

BY Abdifetah Eid Ahmed 04/25/2023

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Adware puts ads up on your screen.

Spyware collects personal information about you, like
your passwords or other
information you type into your computer.
Hijackers turn your machine into a zombie computer.
Dialers force your computer to make phone calls. For
example, one might call toll
900-numbers and run up your phone bill, while
boosting revenue for the owners of the 900-numbers.
 

BY Abdifetah Eid Ahmed 04/25/2023

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E-mail Viruses
Virus authors adapted to the changing computing
environment by creating the e-mail virus. For
example, the Melissa virus in March 1999 was
spectacular. Melissa spread in Microsoft Word
documents sent via e-mail, and it worked like this:
Someone created the virus as a Word document and
uploaded it to an Internet newsgroup. Anyone who
downloaded the document and opened it would
trigger the virus.

BY Abdifetah Eid Ahmed 04/25/2023

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How do Viruses get on my computer?

 The most common way that a virus gets on your
computer is by an email attachment. If you open the
attachment, and your anti-virus program doesn't
detect it, then that is enough to infect your computer.
Some people go so far as NOT opening attachments at
all, but simply deleting the entire message as soon as it
comes in. While this approach will greatly reduce your
chances of becoming infected, it may offend those
relatives of yours who have just sent you the latest
pictures of little Johnny!
BY Abdifetah Eid Ahmed 04/25/2023
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You can also get viruses by downloading

programs from the internet. That great piece of
freeware you spotted from an obscure site may not
be so great after all. It could well be infecting your PC
as the main program is installing. If your PC is
running any version of Windows, and it hasn't got all
the latest patches and updates, then your computer
will be attacked a few minutes after going on the
internet! (Non Windows users can go into smug
mode!)

BY Abdifetah Eid Ahmed 04/25/2023

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Nowadays, they utilized the use of removable
storage devices to spread viruses. The most
common is the use of flash drive. Since removable
drives like flash drive, CD/DVDs have the auto
run functionality, a simple command that enables
the executable file to run automatically, they
exploited and altered it so it will automatically run
the virus (normally with .exe, .bat, .vbs format)
when you insert your flash drive or CD/DVDs.

BY Abdifetah Eid Ahmed 04/25/2023

 Virus infected Symptoms
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Common symptoms of a virus-infected computer include
unusually slow running speeds
failure to respond to user input
system crashes and constant system restarts that are triggered
automatically.
 Individual applications also might stop working correctly,
disk drives might become inaccessible,
unusual error messages may pop up on the screen,
menus and dialog boxes can become distorted and peripherals like
printers
might stop responding. You can't access your disk drives Other
symptoms to look out for are strange
error messages, documents not printing correctly, and distorted menus
and dialogue boxes. Try not to panic if your computer is exhibiting one
or two items on the list.
BY Abdifetah Eid Ahmed 04/25/2023
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 Removal
 The first step in removing computer viruses is installing any updates that
are available for your operating system; modern operating systems will
automatically look for updates if they are connected to the Internet. If you do
not already have anti-virus software on your computer, subscribe to a
service and use the software to do a complete scan of your computer. Since
new computer viruses are constantly being created, set your anti-virus
program to automatically check for updates regularly.
 Prevention
 In order to prevent future computer infections:
 use an Internet firewall,
 check for operating system and anti-virus program updates,
 scan your computer regularly and exercise caution when handling email and
Internet files.

BY Abdifetah Eid Ahmed 04/25/2023

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A firewall is a program or piece of hardware that

helps screen out viruses, worms and hackers which
are attempting to interact with your computer via
the Internet. On modern computers, firewalls come
pre-installed and are turned on by default, so you
probably already have one running in the
background. When opening email attachments,
don't assume they are safe just because they come
from a friend or reliable source; the sender may
have unknowingly forwarded an attachment that
contains a virus.
BY Abdifetah Eid Ahmed 04/25/2023
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Antivirus software
Antivirus or anti-virus software is used to
prevent, detect, and remove  malware, including
but not limited to computer viruses, 
computer worm, trojan horses, spyware  and 
adware. This page talks about the software used for
the prevention and removal of such threats, rather
than computer security implemented by software
methods.

BY Abdifetah Eid Ahmed 04/25/2023

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Thanks to Allah

BY Abdifetah Eid Ahmed 04/25/2023