The
Propagation of Viruses
Douglas Chick
W32.Bugbear@mm is a mass-mailing worm. It can also spread through network
shares. It has keystroke-logging and backdoor capabilities. The worm also
attempts to terminate the processes of various antivirus and firewall
programs. Cricky! This ones a beaut! Not only does this virus have the
ability to mail itself using its victims contact list, but it also spreads
through open shares (shares without passwords) captures keystrokes and
leaves a backdoor to your computer. If this were a reptile, even the
Crocodile Hunter (Steve Erwin) would be a bit apprehensive on putting a top
jaw rope around it.
The list of virus definitions is so long that I wouldn't
even attempt to list them here. But if you were to look at a virus list you
would see a defiant change in the manner of viruses and their nature. What I
see is a development from viruses that were nothing more than childish
pranks to corporate and national espionage. Today's modern viruses are
released with more then a foolish prank in mind; they are engineered for a
purpose. And that purpose is to invade your computer system and retrieve as
much data as it can and send it back to its master. Sounds very Sci-fi
doesn't it.
Most people would say that they don't have anything
valuable enough on their computer to worry about. But even with nothing but
a few word docs, resumes and jokes, most computers have e-mail, or more
importantly an e-mail contact
list with other people's addresses. Mathematically, these types of viruses
can self propagate until they eventually do land in a computer that does
have valuable information in it. And it doesn't take as long as you might
think to get there.
A virus
might travel from one computer to the next until it can find a computer that
does have valuable information on it. It will split off in as many
directions as the e-mails that are in your contact list. You may not know
anyone that works for the government or an engineering design group for an
aerospace company or weapons group, but if it continues to travel by e-mail
address someone in someone else's contract list will.
That is a
lot of computers and e-mail to keep up with, who could possible monitor it
all? Well for starters, China and India have well over a billion people each
within their borders that not only have the time, people and resource, but
they would also benefit a great deal. Of course, this is all speculation and
I only used China and India as examples because when tracking hack attempt
and SMTP sends from viruses they seem to all point to those two countries.
With access to as many computers as viruses make available, third world
hackers must think Americans are Cat Freaks! (I've noticed that people that
are most vulnerable to break-ins tend to have a lot of cat pictures on the
hard drive.) Sorry, I wander when I talk.
In my opinion though, the best viruses are those where
the designer uses the victims themselves to propagate the virus. That is
when Sue forwards an e-mail to everyone she knows that warns of a terrible
virus that will destroy your computer, when in fact the warning is the
virus. Even many computer people fall for that one. The author of this type
of virus has a strong sense of irony. I believe that they may have gotten
the idea from missionaries. Missionaries where infamous for traveling to
remote locations, such as the Hawaiian Islands or say South America
spreading the word of God. What they spread faster than gods words were
plagues and diseases that killed over half of these peoples population.
Using good people to deliver destruction. Irony.
Note: If you were insulted by any part of this opinion article
because you are from India, China, or a missionary that comes from the very
religious affiliations of which I have spoken of that are directly
responsible for the death of millions...then you most probably will not
appreciate my next story that tells of a missionary that rides a cow to a
Beijing slaughter house.
|
|
E-mail
your comments to dougchick@thenetworkadministrator.com