Using buffers against malware And Virus : Computers

Using buffers against malware

People use the term “virus” for any piece of software that causes harm to their computers. Nevertheless, a computer virus is only one form of harmful software among many others which are purposely fabricated to disrupt computers or computer networks. Other types of harmful software include worms, trojans, spyware, adware, etc. Malicious Software or Malware for short, is the common term used to define all these harmful software. Malware can destroy your data in computers, shut down networks/services by creating enormous amount of data traffic, or steal your confidential information which may result in considerable amount of losses both in terms of time and money. Even worse, you may not be able to recover the systems back to the original condition resulting in a permanent loss of your valuable data. In order to protect your computers from these malware you need to get some basic understanding on the behavior of each type and possible defensive mechanisms. Viruses A malware can be called as a virus only when if it fulfills the following three (3) requirements. It should have the capability to cause harm to a computer or its information It propagates with the support of another file (host file) It can add or send its replica to selected targets Worms A worm is a self propagating malicious piece of software. It uses the network connections of the infected computers or services such as email to propagate and infect other computers. Worms do not need a host file to propagate as in the case of a virus. Spyware and Adware These types of malware are distributed using malicious or compromised web sites. If you access such web sites spyware/adware will be installed secretly on the computer without your consent. The intent of these programs is to spy on your interests and browsing habits so that some web sites can tailor their advertisements to those interests. They might send the list of web sites (URLs) that you are visiting to an Internet connected computer or store them in your computer itself in small files known as “Cookies” for later retrieval. Spyware may also collect your personal information; credit card numbers etc. and send them outside entities without your knowledge. Spyware and adware may also degrade the performance of your computer, steal confidential data, capture passwords, destroy data etc. Let’s see how we can defend against malware. Most of the antivirus software has the ability to detect viruses and other forms of malware. So make sure that you have installed antivirus software in your computer and it is running in the background. In order to detect malware, antivirus software look for specific code sequences called “Signatures” which are used by known viruses inside the files of your computer. So it is very important to update the database of known signatures by updating the antivirus software. Otherwise the installed antivirus software may not be able to detect newer malware and your computer will be still vulnerable to them. There are both free and commercial antivirus software available for your selection. Following tips will also help you to keep your computer malware free: Do not open emails or email attachment received from unknown sources Turn on automatic updates so that your operating system and all software are kept up to date by installing patches developed by the vendors Use strong passwords for all computer user accounts Configure installed applications for maximum level of security Don’t copy or open files from USB drives, diskettes, CD ROMs received from unreliable sources. Do not surf / download files from unknown web sites. Enable or install a personal firewall in your computer It is impossible to protect any computer system interacting with the outside world from malware with a 100% guarantee even if you use the best antivirus products. However, above tips will help to make your computers fairly safe from malware infections by reducing the potential risks. ********* Dailymirror.lk**********