Friday, December 14, 2012

How Virus, Spyware, Trojan, Malware, Worms attack your laptop or desktop computer


MALICIOUS PROGRAMS, CODES, SOFTWARES

As technology progresses and advances, so are the internet or web criminals advance in their ways of attacking your computer, desktop, laptop, webtop, and other online electronic equipment. The most common ways of attacking your PC's are in the form of viruses, spywares, trojans, malwares, and worms.

Computer virus
A virus is a computer program that replicates itself by copying the code into the other programs stored in your computer or laptop.

Spyware
A spyware is a software in the form of freeware or adware program that promises to do a certain job for your computer but after installation, it will collect information about web sites you visit, activities you do in your computer, games that you play (without you knowing about it), thereby compromising your personal information and privacy to the makers of the software where they will make use of the collected information from you often in a deceptive manner like theft, fraud, and sinister purposes.

Trojan
A trojan is a code, program, or software that is camouflaged as something useful but in reality is actually harmful to your computer and will result with the hacker to be able to connect remotely to your computer via the trojan introduced and gain access to your files, folders, and data. The name is derived from the Greek mythology where the Trojan Horse is filled with attackers inside.

Malware
A malware is a software that is often deceptively installed in your desktop computer or laptop that causes your computer to shutdown, have black screen, malfunction, or any abnormal and harmful effects caused by the changes of the malware in the system settings of your device.

Worm
A worm is a program or any harmful code that is usually a virus that replicates and reproduces itself to your computer. After making a copy of itself on your machine, it will go on to infect other computers or machines connected in your computer network.


METHODS OF ATTACK

It is often recommended by computer experts to have your computer installed with a good antivirus. But what if the malicious attacker or hacker disables your anti-virus first and once your antivirus is disabled, he/she will go on to hack and steal your personal information or even worse is to damage your computer or your network and other network resources and peripherals.

The most common and often most effective method of attack is through a link to be clicked on your email or through a link on a website. Another tricky way that these evildoers use is by popping up a window in a website that says

"Your computer is infected with virus" or other similar messages and on the bottom or following lines

"Click here to scan your computer for free" or similar messages like

"Click here to clean your computer", etc.

Once you click it...BOOM!...a harmful program, code, or virus will be downloaded and run in your computer and there goes the infestation.

Still another usual method is by mixing the code, program, virus, trojan, or spyware in a compressed file (.zip or .rar) together with a popular software and after you download and extract or uncompress the file, there goes the virus out to do its malignant work!

From my experiences, I was attacked with viruses called IGFXWD32.exe and WIN32.VIRTOB.GEN/VIRUT and the first thing it did was to disable my Antivirus (Bitdefender, Nod32 antivirus) and proceeded with the installation and virus attack. On another occasion, I was searching for a certain software and then I found it in a website and it is free to download. After I downloaded the software (which was in a .rar file) and extracted it using Winrar, my NOD32 from Eset antivirus detected a trojan/virus. On another time, while on a Google search, I came across a site with a pop-up screen message saying "Your computer is infected with viruses, Click here for a free scan", so I clicked OK and my laptop was infected. There are virtually thousands of ways that these fraudulent people use to deceive unsuspecting computer users on the internet and do their dirty work anytime, anywhere on the web!

Watch out and be careful...

Be ready, protect your computer, protect yourself!

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