The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
In 2001, computer viruses cost businesses and home users over 10 billion dollars. Along with spam, viruses are possibly the most concerning (and annoying) part of using a computer. Generally, viruses fall into one of three categories: trojan horses, worms, and macros. Viruses serve one purpose: to infect computers, destroying files and damaging machines. Trojan horses are viruses which infect your computer but lie dormant until a certain date is passed, or until it receives a signal from a remote computer telling the virus to perform a specific function. Trojan horse viruses can allow their creator to make zombies (one computer under the control of another) which are then used for attacks on other computers. Worms are slightly different because as well as causing havoc on your machine, a worm infects other computers by automatically emailing itself out to everyone in your address book. A macro is a small computer program that is basically a series of commands telling your computer to perform a certain operation. Macros are often used in programs such as Microsoft Word and Excel. Macro viruses are dangerous because users regularly share their files at work allowing a virus to quickly spread. As well, macros are the only type of virus that can pass between users of PC and Mac computers as they share the same software. The basic way viruses spread is through email attachments. Computer users can open any email, as long as they do not open attachments. Recently viruses have also been hidden in images. Overall, to ensure the safety of your machine, the best advice is to not open any email attachment unless you are expecting something. Even if it is from someone you know, it could still be a virus. When the Internet was first growing, viruses were something that only experienced, highly skilled computer programmers could release. However, there has recently been a number of viruses released by teenagers who have designed viruses by downloading code from the Internet and then mailing it out. These ready-made viruses are called "kiddie-scripts" and lead to disaster for the teens involved as the penalties for designing and releasing viruses are becoming extremely strict in most nations around the world. Another disturbing event is the collusion of virus writers and spam email. Over the last several weeks, a number of companies who are responsible for much of the spam sitting in your mailbox have launched denial of service attacks on anti-spam organizations. A denial of service attack is basically a barrage of data that is intended to shut down a website. The stakes are high in these attacks as anti-spam organizations regularly publish lists of known spam companies and Internet service providers will automatically reject their email. Viruses are getting to be such a problem that Microsoft has announced a bounty fee of $250,000 to be paid to people who turn in the writers of specific, major viruses. Microsoft is desperately scrambling to plug security holes in their software and learn how viruses are designed, so they are willing to pay for the information. Your best defence is quality, updated anti-virus software made by a company such as Norton or McAffee, and leaving email attachments alone unless you are expecting something. ([email protected])
