Posts Tagged ‘Computer Virus’

FAQ – Most Important Computer Security Issues

1. I need an ultimate security transferring data online, can I achieve that, I mean for real? Yes you can. You can use data encryption with the key known only by the receiver. Suppose a third party tapping the communication gets hold of the data, he will still could not make any sense out of it since it's meaningless unless it is decrypted.

2. Hash table, what is it? Is it the key? A hash value is a string of characters that represent encrypted data. In short, it is the protected data.

3. What does it mean, SSL, and what is it? SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer. SSL is a type of public key encryption.

4. What is a firewall for? A firewall monitors and filters out unwanted data packets from an Internet connection.

5. What is a proxy server? Proxy servers takes the place of users in the eye of web servers. They send requests from users to web servers, and retrieve web pages to send to the computers. This means the computers and the servers don't meet directly and don't have any idea that they do if they connect through a proxy server.

6. What is a botnet? It is an network of what we call zombie computers. A zombie computer is a computer that has transformed into automatic machines or bots that are under the control of a malicious operator.

7. What does DDoS mean, what is it? DDoS is Distributed Denial of Service. It is an attack that uses computers over the internet to send millions of requests to a server with the goal of overwhelming and crashing the server. In a large scale DDoS attack, global internet traffic is disturbed.

8. What does a computer virus do, how does it work? Usually, a computer virus is a malicious code that resides within a huge legitimate code. Although some viruses don’t harm computer, there have been ones that are notorious to have caused a lot of damage.

9. What is phishing? Phishing is a method intended to fool ignorant people into giving away classified information like bank account numbers, usernames and passwords and credit card information, by faking a legitimate web site.

10. What’s a cracker? What is black hat? We call hackers infiltrating secured systems to cause rogue things acquire certain informations as crackers. A black hat hacker is someone who actively attempts to break into systems or use computer viruses to steal information or achieve other purposes.

Psychological Means That Computer Virus Uses to Spread

I guess you have been in a situation where you are convinced to buy certain goods but regretted later when you’ve got home. I have. I usually categorize that kind of marketing as high pressure psychological selling, because the salesman usually applies high level of psychological pressure on the prospect to finally succeed in selling the goods. Trojans and worms are more and more into these practices of iplementing psychological pressure in order to compromise a victim. Such techniques implements but not limited to the exploitation of human basic psychologies: Curiosity, Greed, and Fear. How do we tell that a trojan or a worm virus is trying to get into our system using a psychological pressure? These are things to beare of to help us tell just prior to their attempts to compromise our system: 1. Is it pressing us to download and run some program, in the fear of getting the computer worse due to some infection of trojan or computer virus? If it is while it’s not at all the active running antivirus software we have installed, we can say that it is definitely a virus, malware, or even a worm. 2. Is it offering some software solution that looks like it’s too good to be true and free at the same time? At times, it can be just a marketing hype, but it’s a best practice to beware about the urge to download or agreeing on something it is offering. Downloading a program or just opening a page containing java script or flash application would be enough to get our computer compromised by a computer virus, malware, or trojan. 3. Are we aware of the brands (if any)? Is it a rather famous antivirus brand, or just some very popular one, but not an antivirus? At times the viruses take advantage of well known brand names only to trick uncautious people. Do you remember the “XP Antivirus 2008″ virus disguising Antivirus Software Downloads? Its high success rate really was boosted by the “XP” brand, riding on Windows XP’s brand. Lately, a brand new release of the virus is already spreading, one that we know as “XP Antivirus 2009″. 4. It’s a good practice to always check and recheck if the URL we type is not a fake or phising site. You have to do this if you wish not to unwantingly enter a phishing site, in which case is a much worse scenario compared to contracting a virus. A rogue site is an latest psychological scam in that it tricked visitors into thinking that it’s the right site they’re searching to visit. Everything they have on the page would in turn then be taken for granted by unsuspecting visitors. 5. If you are not sure about those things mentioned above, consult someone you know who knows better about them. There should be at the very least something certain about it, like a popular brand name of antivirus or computer security software solution, the exact URL or at least domain name of the target site, what should be classified into being too good to be true and what not. The success rate this way of contagion has is surprisingly high, assuming the wide availability of legitimate computer security software and antivirus or Internet Security Software available in the market. Based on this fact, I always tell everyone who asked me about computer security to continuously learn about it, even for just a small bit of knowledge. Because with knowledge only although a tiny bit, that we can really sustain our safety against malware.