Digital Immunity The Myths and Reality

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What is Malware?

Any piece of hardware, software or firmware that is intentionally included or introduced into a computer system for unauthorized purposes usually without the knowledge or consent of the use


Virus – Defined


“…a program which makes a copy of itself in such a way as to ‘infect’ parts of the operating system and/or application programs.”- Survivor’s Guide to Computer Viruses, Virus Bulletin, 1993.

Replicates
file to file
system to system
disk to disk
Typically requires a “host”
Must be executed
May cause a symptom or damage (payload)


Types of Viruses

.Boot sector
Infects boot record on diskette or hard drive
Only spreads if booted from infected diskette
.File infector
Infects program files or portable executables
.Macro
Infects operating environment
.Scripts
Similar to batch files
.Multi-partite
Combinations of any of the types above