|
July 6, 2004
A: FROM MENTOR DENISE HARBERT
IN IL
Hi Jessica! Like the other mentors pointed out, viruses spread
mostly through
email attachments and through internet connections. If you're
connected to
the internet, you should definitely have a virus protection
software installed
and you may also want to install a personal firewall. Firewalls
are
especially critical for people who have cable modem or DSL
connections that
allow their computers to be on-line 24 hours a day. Firewalls
are less
important for people who dial up through their phone line
whenever they want
to use their computers for limited periods of time. As far
as I am aware, the
two most popular companies that sell this type of software
are Symantec/Norton
at www.symantec.com and
McAfee at www.mcafee.com.
As far as why people would bother, that's a question for a
criminal
psychologist! Why do people lie? cheat? steal? betray friends?
paint
graffiti? vandalize buildings? kill? Honest people can sometimes
understand
why someone would be dishonest in order to receive a tangible
reward (like
money). But most honest people can't understand dishonesty
without tangible
rewards. Viruses are created by people, but those people do
not get any
tangible rewards from creating them. When viruses attack corporate,
governmental, and educational computers worldwide, they can
cause billions,
yes billions, of dollars in damages to computers, computer
files, and lost
productivity. No one gets to keep that money. It is simply
lost because
people all over the world have to stop working, fix their
computers, reinstall
software, and redo work that they already did before their
computers were
infected. Viruses can have serious impacts on the world economy,
yet the
people who create them get nothing out of it other than the
pleasure of
destroying property. Perhaps, for some people, virus creation
has the same
"pleasure" experience as lighting fires does for
pyromaniacs or murdering does
for serial killers. Most honest people cannot understand why
anyone would do
it, but there are people who do it precisely because they
get a strange thrill
out of it. They may get pleasure from doing something they
know is wrong. It
may make them feel smarter or more powerful than others. There
may not
necessarily be any logical reason why anyone would create
a computer virus.
Not all human behaviors are logical!
********************
June 29, 2004
A: FROM MENTOR KRISTIN TAGHON
IN IL
Jessica,
Very good question! I ask myself that myself. What is in it
for them? I did a
search for "computer viruses" on google and found
this website:
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/virus.htm
At the top of the page, you have a table of contents. You
can either scroll
down to what you want to read and click on it. Or you can
page through the
pages, by reading down to the "Next" link.
It will tell you how they work, what kinds of viruses are
out there (worms,
email, trojan horses and viruses), how to prevent them, and
finally the origins
of viruses and why people do it.
Basically, the article says that people create viruses because
they just want to
see if they can, want to SAY they can, and like to see other
people have
problems. Silly reasons if you ask me.
Here is an important bit of information from the website.
It tells you HOW to
prevent it from happening to you:
"An Ounce of Prevention
You can protect yourself against viruses with a few simple
steps:
If you are truly worried about traditional (as opposed to
e-mail) viruses, you
should be running a more secure operating system like UNIX.
You never hear about
viruses on these operating systems because the security features
keep viruses
(and unwanted human visitors) away from your hard disk.
If you are using an unsecured operating system, then buying
virus protection
software is a nice safeguard.
If you simply avoid programs from unknown sources (like the
Internet), and
instead stick with commercial software purchased on CDs, you
eliminate almost
all of the risk from traditional viruses. In addition, you
should disable floppy
disk booting -- most computers now allow you to do this, and
that will eliminate
the risk of a boot sector virus coming in from a floppy disk
accidentally left
in the drive.
You should make sure that Macro Virus Protection is enabled
in all Microsoft
applications, and you should NEVER run macros in a document
unless you know what
they do. There is seldom a good reason to add macros to a
document, so avoiding
all macros is a great policy.
You should never double-click on an attachment that contains
an executable that
arrives as an e-mail attachment. Attachments that come in
as Word files (.DOC),
spreadsheets (.XLS), images (.GIF and .JPG), etc., are data
files and they can
do no damage (noting the macro virus problem in Word and Excel
documents
mentioned above). A file with an extension like EXE, COM or
VBS is an
executable, and an executable can do any sort of damage it
wants. Once you run
it, you have given it permission to do anything on your machine.
The only
defense is to never run executables that arrive via e-mail.
"
Thanks for the question, Jessica.
**********************
A: FROM MENTOR LORI KANE IN
MA
It's a bit hard to understand why people would write virsuses
because the
writers don't gain financially, rarely acheive fame, and don't
usually
target specific people. People often write viruses just to
see if they can
(I haven't done it, but it is apparently fairly easy) and
to see how far
it can travel. It probably also gives them a special feeling
of power if
they are able to wreak havoc on computer systems.
A virus can spread across computers and networks by making
copies of
itself, usually without the user knowing. They can come from
files
downloaded from the Internet, e-mail attachments, and documents
and
spreadsheets that contain macros.
The best way to protect yourself is to never download a program
or open an
e-mail attachment unless your know who the sender or writer
of the program
is. Also, install virus scanning software on your computer
and check for
updates frequently.
|
