Computer Viruses Essay Research Paper In the

Computer Viruses Essay, Research Paper

In the past decade, computer and networking technology has seen enormous growth.

This growth however, has not come without a price. With the advent of the

"Information Highway", as it.s coined, a new methodology in crime

has been created. Electronic crime has been responsible for some of the most

financially devastating victimizations in society. In the recent past, society

has seen malicious editing of the Justice Department web page (1), unauthorized

access into classified government computer files, phone card and credit card

fraud, and electronic embezzlement. All these crimes are committed in the name

of "free speech." These new breed of criminals claim that information

should not be suppressed or protected and that the crimes they commit are really

not crimes at all. What they choose to deny is that the nature of their actions

are slowly consuming the fabric of our country.s moral and ethical trust in

the information age. Federal law enforcement agencies, as well as commercial

computer companies, have been scrambling around in an attempt to

"educate" the public on how to prevent computer crime from happening

to them. They inform us whenever there is an attack, provide us with mostly

ineffective anti-virus software, and we are left feeling isolated and

vulnerable. I do not feel that this defensive posture is effective because it is

not pro-active. Society is still being attacked by highly skilled computer

criminals of which we know very little about them, their motives, and their

tools of the trade. Therefore, to be effective in defense, we must understand

how these attacks take place from a technical stand-point. To some degree, we

must learn to become a computer criminal. Then we will be in a better position

to defend against these victimizations that affect us on both the financial and

emotional level. In this paper, we will explore these areas of which we know so

little, and will also see that computers are really extensions of people. An

attack on a computer.s vulnerabilities are really an attack on peoples.

vulnerabilities. Today, computer systems are under attack from a multitude of

sources. These range from malicious code, such as viruses and worms, to human

threats, such as hackers and phone "phreaks." These attacks target

different characteristics of a system. This leads to the possibility that a

particular system is more susceptible to certain kinds of attacks. Malicious

code, such as viruses and worms, attack a system in one of two ways, either

internally or externally. Traditionally, the virus has been an internal threat

(an attack from within the company), while the worm, to a large extent, has been

a threat from an external source (a person attacking from the outside via modem

or connecting network). Human threats are perpetrated by individuals or groups

of individuals that attempt to penetrate systems through computer networks,

public switched telephone networks or other sources. These attacks generally

target known security vulnerabilities of systems. Many of these vulnerabilities

are simply due to configuration errors. Malicious Code Viruses and worms are

related classes of malicious code; as a result they are often confused. Both

share the primary objective of replication. However, they are distinctly

different with respect to the techniques they use and their host system

requirements. This distinction is due to the disjoint sets of host systems they

attack. Viruses have been almost exclusively restricted to personal computers,

while worms have attacked only multi-user systems. A careful examination of the

histories of viruses and worms can highlight the differences and similarities

between these classes of malicious code. The characteristics shown by these

histories can be used to explain the differences between the environments in

which they are found. Viruses and worms have very different functional

requirements; currently no class of systems simultaneously meets the needs of

both. A review of the development of personal computers and multi-tasking

workstations will show that the gap in functionality between these classes of

systems is narrowing rapidly. In the future, a single system may meet all of the

requirements necessary to support both worms and viruses. This implies that

worms and viruses may begin to appear in new classes of systems. A knowledge of

the histories of viruses and worms may make it possible to predict how malicious

code will cause problems in the future. Basic Definitions To provide a basis for

further discussion, the following definitions will be used throughout the

report; Trojan Horse – a program which performs a useful function, but also

performs an unexpected action as well; Virus – a code segment which replicates

by attaching copies to existing e

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