The most active computer infections

Good morning everyone and Happy September! Did you know that the lion's share of home based computer issues are directly related to Mal-ware activity? Sure, hardware can go bad; a hard drive crashes, your memory degrades and your operating system goes amuck. But the question is, why?

In every instance of hardware and operating system and program performance issue, software is at the heart of it. Look at it this way: You press the power button to turn on your computer, "software" tells your system how to boot up. This includes the physical configuration of all hardware devices in your system. Furthermore, you have tons of applications installed, and all of it is dependent on "software" (usually a configuration file) that decides whether or not you're allowed to use that application and how so if you can. "Software" even controls how fast your your Hard Disk spins, how hard your processor needs to work in order to keep up with all of the tasks you want to perform and "software" also controls and manages communication between your system and the big bad world of the Internet.

If your "software" becomes unstable or otherwise corrupted, you could be paying a whole heck of a lot more money in parts and applications than you would have if you would have just purchased that quality Antivirus solution.

How do viruses work? Well, before I get to that, here is a tidbit for you to chew on while you wait for your Tech Support Guru to arrive . . . For example, experts estimate that the Mydoom worm infected approximately a quarter-million computers in a single day in January 2004. Back in March 1999, the Melissa virus was so powerful that it forced Microsoft and a number of other very large companies to completely turn off their e-mail systems until the virus could be contained. The ILOVEYOU virus in 2000 had a similarly devastating effect. In January 2007, a worm called Storm appeared -- by October, experts believed up to 50 million computers were infected. That's pretty impressive when you consider that many viruses are incredibly simple. OK, so did you swallow that bagel whole?

• Viruses - A virus is a small piece of software that piggybacks on real programs. For example, a virus might attach itself to a program such as a spreadsheet program. Each time the spreadsheet program runs, the virus runs, too, and it has the chance to reproduce (by attaching to other programs) or wreak havoc.
• E-mail viruses - An e-mail virus travels as an attachment to e-mail messages, and usually replicates itself by automatically mailing itself to dozens of people in the victim's e-mail address book. Some e-mail viruses don't even require a double-click -- they launch when you view the infected message in the preview pane of your e-mail software [source: Johnson].
• Trojan horses - A Trojan horse is simply a computer program. The program claims to do one thing (it may claim to be a game) but instead does damage when you run it (it may erase your hard disk). Trojan horses have no way to replicate automatically.
• Worms - A worm is a small piece of software that uses computer networks and security holes to replicate itself. A copy of the worm scans the network for another machine that has a specific security hole. It copies itself to the new machine using the security hole, and then starts replicating from there, as well.

 Here is a list of the most active risks that you should be aware of.

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Name

Type

Last Updated

Discovered

Trojan.Zbot!gen10	Trojan Virus	08/31/2010	08/31/2010
Bloodhound.Exploit.353	Trojan Virus	08/30/2010	08/30/2010
Bloodhound.Java.3	Trojan Virus	08/28/2010	08/30/2010
W32.Pilleuz!gen10	Worm	08/27/2010	08/27/2010
Boot.Tidserv	Trojan	08/26/2010	08/26/2010
Backdoor.Tidserv.L	Trojan	08/25/2010	08/25/2010
Trojan.Bamital!gen1	Trojan	08/24/2010	08/24/2010
Bloodhound.Exploit.351	Trojan Virus	08/23/2010	08/23/2010
Trojan.Pandex!gen2	Trojan	08/18/2010	08/20/2010
W32.Rixobot!gen3	Trojan Virus	08/20/2010	08/20/2010

Intimidated yet? You should be. Now, the question I'm sure you are all asking right about now is, "How can I protect myself" or "Um .  . . yeah, I already have that, so, how do I get rid of it"? Well, it is always good to have the protection that an Anti-virus program and a Firewall can provide. Beware . . . you get what you pay for when you install that "Free" Anti-virus program. Also note that Even though you may have an Antivirus Program, on occasion, a new threat can still find it's way in and removal is typically not a very pleasant task and can get quite involved. Call someone. In fact, call Caincorp.NET; It is just one of the things we do and do well.

Until then folks . . . Happy Hunting!