Security is in high demand these days. Growth in information technology and having high stake data has called for a genuine need for protection.
Some of the illegal activities which have created problems are
> Hacking : gaining illegal ownership over system
> Phishing : fraud process of getting sensitive information by means of spoofing
> spamming : transmitting unnecessary bulk messages/mails in software.
Awareness about security is need of the hour to target these problems. As one gets educated about proper usage of any application in software market, complexity of security problems gets diminished.
A malicious Software (Malware) is something which usually harms the system. I have listed some of them
Infectious or harming malwares :
a. Virus : - Its a computer program which infects other executables,harms computer when they are run. Usually double clicking it,triggers the problem . It might have some payloads which performs other actions. Here user intervention is a MUST !
b. Worm :- Its almost same as virus but they volunteerily gets executed and spread the infection themselves. Here user intervention is not required,they are very fast to spread.
Never use Virus and worms interchangably. Both are different.
Hiding and decieving malwares :
These are very interesting infecting softwares. They hide from the user , act innocent without showing their presence and does illegitimate activity.
a. Trojan Horse : Its a malicious application,gets installed by attracting the user. Tempted by the dummy offers displayed, user installs the program which will contain payload to allow worms into the system or install other malwares.
b. RootKits : These are applications which conceal themselves and subvert usual OS operations. They give illegal authority to their masters.
c. Backdoors : These allow illegal entry point to attackers bypassing normal authorization process. User will never be able to trace the presence of these application.
Malwares for monetary benefits :
untill 1990s malwares were thought to be existing for pranks but later on intentions turned to profit making . Some of them are listed here,
a. Spyware : Its like trojan horse but intended to display ads , altering the web pages to get the creator of spyware some monetary leads.
b. Key Logger : This is an application which stores keystrokes of computer user which can be later misused. Usually bank related vulnerabilities are exploited here.
c. Botnets : These are applications which act like potential users usually found in online chats. They display ads or misguide other valid users.
Anti Malware solution or Anti Virus solution as its generally called, aims at securing computer from all the malwares. They identify infections first of all,If the user intends, AV Solution takes appropriate action.
Let us know few basic concepts of anti virus technology :
Anti Virus Product : This is a software which takes care of scanning the computer and take appropriate action after infection is identified. The common actions which are executed once an infection is found are as follows :
* Repair : repairs the infected file.
* Quarantine : separate malware from application, move it to a monitored location
* Delete : Delete the infected file
Scanning : This is process of examining computer's memory , file systems to be infected or not. There are two ways of scanning, in On Access Scanning (OAS) where continous scanning will be happening and whenever any of these resource is accessed by any computer application. In On Demand Scan (ODS) scanning is done whenever user requires scanning to be done. OAS is highly recommended.
DATs : These are also called Virus signatures. These actually contains pointer for infections. This help scanner to find the culprit application and take appropriate scanning action.
Take an example : A cop is finding goons of a gang. He has a file which contains photographs, contacts of gang members. cop will be successful in catching these people based on file. In Anti Virus analogy, cop is scanner, file containing photographs and contact of gang members will be DATs and gang members are malwares.
As everyday many bad people join the gang, file having photographs should also be updated with new gang members. This analogy is called DAT updation.
Site Advisor (SA) : This is one McAfee product, comes free of cost.
We generally surf web pages without having knowledge about their authenticity. Site advisor once installed helps user to decide to access web page or not. SA warns user with Red Balloon for any web page which is harmful or tells with green ballooon that a webpage is safe to go.
This can be downloaded from : http://www.siteadvisor.com/download/windows.html
I will spend some time to collect some tips to secure your computer. If you are not able to afford to install any Anti Virus products, you can use free software from AVAST.
This can be downloaded from : http://www.avast.com/free-antivirus-download
Hope this blog was useful :) Create awareness , protect cyber world !
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