Tag Archives: files
Computing's Dirty Dozen: Malware (Page 1 of 2)
It seems that no sooner do you feel safe turning on your computer than you hear on the news about a new kind of internet security threat. Usually, the security threat is some kind of malware (though the term “security threat” no doubt sells more newspapers).
What is malware? Malware is exactly what its name implies: mal (meaning bad, in the sense of malignant or malicious rather than just poorly done) ware (short for software). More specifically, malware is software that does not benefit the computer’s owner, and may even harm it, and so is purely parasitic.
The Many Faces of Malware
According to Wikipedia, there are in fact eleven distinct types of malware, and even more sub-types of each.
1. Viruses. The malware that’s on the news so much, even your grandmother knows what it is. You probably already have heard plenty about why this kind of software is bad for you, so there’s no need to belabor the point.
2. Worms. Slight variation on viruses. The difference between viruses and worms is that viruses hide inside the files of real computer programs (for instance, the macros in Word or the VBScript in many other Microsoft applications), while worms do not infect a file or program, but rather stand on their own.
3. Wabbits.Be honest: had you ever even heard of wabbits before (outside of Warner Bros. cartoons)? According to Wikipedia, wabbits are in fact rare, and it’s not hard to see why: they don’t do anything to spread to other machines. A wabbit, like a virus, replicates itself, but it does not have any instructions to email itself or pass itself through a computer network in order to infect other machines. The least ambitious of all malware, it is content simply to focus on utterly devastating a single machine.
4. Trojans. Arguably the most dangerous kind of malware, at least from a social standpoint. While Trojans rarely destroy computers or even files, that’s only because they have bigger targets: your financial information, your computer’s system resources, and sometimes even massive denial-of-service attacks launched by having thousands of computers all try to connect to a web server at the same time. Trojans can even
5. Spyware. In another instance of creative software naming, spyware is software that spies on you, often tracking your internet activities in order to serve you advertising. (Yes, it’s possible to be both adware and spyware at the same time.)
6. Backdoors. Backdoors are much the same as Trojans or worms, except that they do something different: they open a “backdoor” onto a computer, providing a network connection for hackers or other malware to enter or for viruses or spam to be sent out through.
7. Exploits. Exploits attack specific security vulnerabilities. You know how Microsoft is always announcing new updates for its operating system? Often enough the updates are really trying to close the security hole targeted in a newly discovered exploit.
Speed Up Your Computer with Auslogics Disk Defrag
Remember how fast your computer was out of the box? Your Windows loaded within seconds, files opened with a snap, and browsing the Web was a great experience. Unfortunately, computers slow down with time no matter how fast they are at first. This happens for a number of reasons, but the main cause of slow computer performance is disk fragmentation. Auslogics Disk Defrag can fix that.
File fragmentation occurs because Windows tries to save new files in the most space-efficient manner. It attempts to fill every available bit of space. To do that, it needs to split files, e.g. the files become fragmented. When you need to open a fragmented file, your hard drive’s read arm needs to perform a lot more operations than when you are opening a non-fragmented file. As a result, fragmented files take longer to open. But the worst bit is that this is true for every single piece of data stored on your computer – Windows system files, files needed by your software, your browser and so on. That’s why fragmentation reduces overall computer performance. Worse still, severe fragmentation can even lead to computer freeze-ups and crashes. The answer is to defragment your hard drive on a regular basis.
Windows has its own built-in disk defrag tool. However, it’s very slow and doesn’t do the job properly. It also lacks some important disk optimization features that guarantee flawless disk performance. Luckily, there are a lot of free alternatives. One of them is Auslogics Disk Defrag – a really well-known disk defrag and optimization utility. It’s a lot faster than the Windows defragmentation utility, can perform advanced disk optimization, and has a very intuitive interface.
Let’s have a look at some of its features:
Free Space Consolidation
Conventional defragmentation only defrags files, but does nothing to defragment free disk space. This means that free space remains fragmented. As bits of fragmented free space get filled with new files, the files become fragmented as well. As a result, fragmentation starts building up right after you defrag your files. Auslogics Disk Defrag can defragment the free space, which prevents new files from becoming fragmented.
Hard Drive Optimization
Windows system files are the most important and most used files on your PC. They are accessed no matter what you do and are essential for computer boot. Often Windows system files get placed on slower tracks of your hard drive and take longer to load. This slows down your whole operating system. Auslogics Disk Defrag defragments system files and moves them to the fast tracks of your disk. This keeps your system running fast and smooth.
Interactive Fragmentation Map
Auslogics Disk Defrag generates an interactive disk map that shows all files on your disk. The map is divided into blocks. You can see which files are in each block and whether they are fragmented or not by simply clicking on them. You can also personalize Disk Defrag by selecting the fragmentation map style and color theme that you like best.
Auslogics Disk Defrag is really easy to use. Novice users will have no problems figuring it out. As for more advanced users, they will appreciate Disk Defrag’s advanced options and command line tools.
Types of Computer Viruses
In computing terminology, a malicious code is a term used for computer viruses and programs designed to cause damage to computers. Other types of destructive PC worms are known as Internet virus including the examples like Worms and Trojans.
Outlined below is the description of different kinds of computer viruses:
Program/File Infector
Falling under the category of parasitic viruses, a program or file infector attempts to infect the files with extension code like .exe, .com, .drv, .dil, .bin, .ovl, and .sys. It gets activate along with the execution of executable file containing virus. The virus then loads itself into memory and replicates itself to other executable files when these files are opened or run.
The File Infector virus can destroy the content contained in files and cause irreversible damage to them. Some file viruses have also operated as email worm and Trojan horse.
The best way to disinfect files infected by the file virus is to delete them and restore from back up.
Macro Computer Virus
A macro computer virus is a virus written in a language built into a software application such as a word processor. For example: Microsoft Office has the macro language built into its application. This is why most of its application programs are affected by macro computer virus.
Macro viruses are generally created using the macro recorder or Visual Basic for Applications. The applications that are the most prone to this antivirus are Word Documents, Excel Spreadsheets, Power Point Presentation, and Access Database. The virus infects templates of these documents and therefore every file that the user opens gets affected. Some common macro computer viruses are Auto Exec, Auto New, Auto Open, Auto Close, and Auto Exit.
The auto macros can be disabled by using the command DisableAutoMacros in any macro that is written. Another way to remove it is by holding down the shift key while opening a document.
Multi-Partite Virus
It behaves in the same way as other computer viruses do. As the name signifies, they are sometimes more than one type. These are hybrids and are known as multi-partite virus.
Polymorphic Viruses
It is a kind of virus which produces different but operational copies for itself. Its attack is considered to be extremely dangerous as virus detectors will not be able to detect all instances of virus attacks simultaneously. And this is one of the reasons why it is known to be strategically designed.
Stealth Viruses
A stealth virus uses different mechanisms to prevent recognition by antivirus software. It tries to escape detection either by redirecting the disk head to head to read another sector or modifying the file size shown in the Directory listing.
Classification of some viruses is not possible as they are the file type viruses which start behaving as computer worms with an activation code.