A Literature Review Regarding Virus Protection

Although most of the people think that there is nil to make a research in the country of computing machine virus protection, there are more and more things to research as everyday more than 200 computing machine malware are created by the virus Godheads. In the modern universe most of the people are utilizing computing machines in their daily activities. So it is more of import to hold cognition of computing machine viruses and protecting the computing machines from those viruses.

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Identifying what the computing machine viruses are, their types, the menace to the computing machine from computing machine viruses, the present state of affairs of computing machine viruses and bar mechanisms from the computing machine viruses are the aims of this literature reappraisal.

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section { Introduction }

As the use of the computing machines and creative activity of computing machine viruses are increasing all over the universe, every computing machine user began to seek about the computing machine viruses.

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But there are other assorted sorts of package like worms and Trojans that can make some injury to the activities of the computing machine other than the viruses. Although they are different from computing machine viruses, the computing machine users are used to name those other types of malicious package `` viruses '' .

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Though there is no any existent definition for the computing machine viruses, they can be considered as particular sort of package plans that have the ability of ego replicating over feasible files reside in the computing machine and make some break to the activities of the computing machine.

As the computing machine viruses are distributing merely when the feasible files are put to deathing, the viruses can consequence merely for the feasible files in the septic computing machine. So most of the clip the files with.EXE, .COM, .BAT, .SYS extensions are infected. A computing machine virus can be written with a few lines of programming codifications in any programming linguistic communication. Any individual who has a personal computing machine can compose a computing machine virus and direct it to another computing machine or system far off from the computing machine which produced the virus through a web or any disc. These viruses can destruct any monolithic computing machine system or web easy within few seconds.

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Computer viruses which do less injury to the computing machines are merely distributing over the computing machines and computing machine webs. They do non make any unsafe injury to the computing machines other than merely retroflexing them in the system. The most unsafe type of viruses consequence to the computing machines by altering the content of the files, partly of wholly canceling the files reside in the computing machine. The information stored in the computing machine can be lost by infecting these sorts of computing machine viruses. These types of computing machine viruses can non be catch by analyzing the files in the computing machine. But merely the devastation they have done to the computing machine will stay. So capturing these viruses is the more hard thing.

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Preventing or protecting from computing machine viruses non merely intend put ining an anti virus plan and scan the files by acquiring usage of the anti virus plan but besides consciousness of the computing machine viruses or malicious package and practising best patterns when utilizing a computing machine. But most of the clip most of the computing machine users trust assorted anti virus plans to protect their systems against computing machine viruses. Assorted anti virus plans use assorted methods or processs to capture viruses and other types of malicious package. But with any of the computing machine protection method, they can non to the full protect the computing machine from computing machine viruses or malicious package. The following session of this reappraisal is considered about what are the types of Malware and how they infected to computing machine system. cite { 1 }

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section { Types of malware }

There is no standard method to categorise viruses into assorted types. But when we consider current state of affairs of computing machine viruses in the universe we can fundamentally declare types of malware as follows,

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item Trojan

item Worms

item Viruss

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subsection { Trojan }

Trojan viruses do non reproduce in the computing machine but after a Trojan virus enters into the computing machine they merely let the outside individuals to read the files reside in the computing machine. Normally Trojans steal watchwords and direct electronic mails to hackers. Then the hacker will acquire the control of the user 's history. cite { 2 }

subsection { Worms }

Worms are sort of computing machine viruses copy and spread over the computing machine webs. It does non necessitate a host to distribute. Once they multiplied in a computing machine, the copied viruses scan the web for farther multiplying and distributing via the network.cite { 2 }

subsection { Viruss }

Computer viruses are a plan, a block of feasible codification which attaches itself to. It overwrites or replaces some codification of computing machine plan without cognizing of computing machine user. A virus ever needs a host plan to shack. The virus is in its idle province till the host plan it resides executes. When the host plan executes the bock of codification of the virus besides executes and hunts for another location which it can infect. The computing machine viruses can be categorized into figure of classs like Resident Viruses, Direct Action Viruses, Overwrite Viruses, Boot Viruses, Macro Viruses, Directory Viruses, Polymorphic Viruses, File Infectors, Companion Viruses, FAT Viruses. cite { 2 }

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item Resident Viruses - Permanent viruses reside in the RAM

item Direct Action Viruses - This type of virus spreads and does its work when it is put to deathing.

item Overwrite Viruses - These viruses delete the content of the files reside in the computing machine.

item Boot Viruses - This sort of virus infects to a boot sector of the difficult thrust or floppy. A boot virus can be infected to the boot sector of the computing machine by booting the computing machine from an septic floppy disc.

item Directory Viruses - These viruses change the way of a file.

item Polymorphic Viruses - These are coding their ain codification with different algorithms every clip they enter into a system.

item File Infectors - Infect plans or feasible files. They infect to a file when the plan attached to it executes.

item Companion Viruses - These are working like resident viruses or direct action viruses.

item FAT Viruses - These infect to the file allotment tabular array.

item Macro Viruses - This sort of virus infects to the files that have created utilizing plans that contain macros. Presently most of the times they are impacting to Word 6, WordBasic and Excel as macros are created by WordBasic. In the present state of affairs of the computing machine viruses, 15 per centum of the viruses are macro viruses. On day-to-day footing macro viruses are created by the computing machine users in their machines. New macro viruses are making due to corruptness, coupling and transition. Macro viruses are the most destructive sort of a virus. Most of the traditional anti virus plans are unable to observe those new macro viruses. cite { 2 }

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section { How Viruss affect and infect to the system }

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includegraphics [ bb =0 0 100 325 ] { virus.png }

caption { Malware Detected by Year } cite { 10 }

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If the virus coevals velocity is greater than its decease rate, a virus can easy distribute within a short period of clip. Figure1 shows how Malware spread with clip. All the computing machine viruses do non trip at the clip they enter into the computing machine. But sometimes they activate after some period of come ining it into the personal computing machine or computing machine system. Some of them will ne'er trip and some will trip and make injury to the files in the system or alter the content of the files, format the difficult disc, show a image in the background.

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There are tonss of ways which a virus can come in into a computing machine. Most of the clip, they spread and enter into a new computing machine through a computing machine web. With a removable media, it is possible to distribute a virus. By downloading some games or package through a web site, a virus can come in into a new system. In the yesteryear there was a warrant that the web sites do non incorporate viruses. But in the present state of affairs, there is no warrant that the web sites do non incorporate viruses.

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Trapdoor is another common manner of come ining a virus into a system. Trapdoors are sometimes created by the coders who developed the package to avoid traveling through the security process or avoid entering watchwords during the period of clip the system or package is developed. As a trapdoor is a manner to come in into a system without come ining a watchword, a virus can easy come in into a system through a trapdoor.

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If have the attending to the new computing machine viruses, the codification of some freshly created computing machine viruses are encrypted so that the anti virus package can non catch them. cite { 3 }

section { Protection from computing machine viruses }

To distribute a virus from one computing machine to another, it should hold the permission or ability to put to death its codification and make some alterations or wholly cancel the files other than the file the virus presently shacking. Harmonizing to those facts, protection from computing machine viruses means prevent the computing machine virus from copying it self to another location, the computing machine virus does non incorporate or avoid modifying or canceling the other files the computing machine virus does non shack.

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If the content of a file has modified or edited without cognition of the user, the user can surmise that a virus has been infected to the computing machine. Other than that when a virus has attacked a system, sometimes the public presentation of the computing machine can be reduced, assorted mistake messages are displayed or utilize some storage infinite from disc thrusts out of the blue.

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Worms usually find references to distribute and they capture the references in three ways. Worms

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item Randomly generate references

item Find addresses in system tabular arraies

item Find addresses in a plan

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Protection against worms can include,

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item Put watchwords that can non easy conjecture.

item Remove some procedures which reveal the secured informations in the system.

item Apply some solutions to the bugs.

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As worms are quickly spread over webs and they are seeking to overload the webs, protecting from worms include supervising web activities and make isolation and inactivation of some parts of the web.

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When it comes to protecting computing machines from viruses, the simplest things the user can make is ever backup the informations reside in the computing machine. But it is non a proper solution to cover with the computing machine viruses. As most of the computing machine users are now cognizant of the computing machine viruses they control `` write '' privilege to computing machine plans. After infecting a virus to a plan since it changes the content of the file, there are some sort of package that can be used to look into the content for irregular alterations in its content. cite { 4,12 }

section { Anti virus package plans }

When protecting a computing machine from computing machine viruses with the aid of an anti virus plan, the service suppliers of those anti virus plans are supplying their service to its clients in figure of different ways. Some of the sellers or anti virus package are waiting for a petition from a user for their merchandise. After the client or the user petitions, the service supplier provides their service to the user. Another sort of anti virus seller automatically downloads and installs their merchandise into client 's machine without the cognition of the user. Some of the sellers are directing electronic mails to the computing machine users adverting the handiness of their merchandise. However some of those above mentioned ways have some ethically non relevant processs.

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Though 1000s of anti virus plans, designed by coders are at that place to observe computing machine viruses, they can non play a perfect function in observing computing machine viruses. More viruses are written for a new platform is the ground for that. To observe those new viruses, new sensing engineerings should be invented. There are figure of computing machine virus sensing methods.

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Over some old ages ago, merely the known viruses could be detected by anti virus plans. What those anti virus plans did were, choosing a twine from known viruses and when a scan for viruses is started, anti virus plan hunts for files include that twine and observe that file as an septic file. This method of observing computing machine viruses looked merely for inactive features of known computing machine viruses. But as 1000s of computing machine viruses are making within a twelvemonth, the industry people started to make anti virus plans that are observing unknown computing machine viruses excessively. These methods are called `` heuristic method '' .

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As computing machine virus infection has become a immense menaces to who owns a computing machine and who uses computing machines. Most of the computing machine users are today acquiring the service of an anti virus plan to observe malicious package or computing machine viruses. Geting usage of an anti virus package is the most secured and popular manner to protect the computing machines from malicious package. Anti virus plans identify the malicious package in two chief attacks.

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item They use a twine fiting attack to place antecedently known viruses or malicious package.

item The 2nd method the anti virus plans use is capturing unnatural behaviours of any computing machine plan running on the computing machine.

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In threading fiting attack, the anti virus plans are acquiring usage of a 'virus lexicon ' which contains the codifications of antecedently known viruses. When an anti virus plan starts to scan a file it refers to the virus lexicon and when it finds a block of codification in the scanned file which besides included in the virus lexicon, it rapidly takes an action against the leery file. cite { 5 }

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If an anti virus plan uses capturing unnatural or leery behaviours, it monitors the behaviour of the file which is scanning and if the file behaves abnormally the anti virus plan detect the file as infected file an return an action against that. By utilizing this method, the new viruses can besides be detected. cite { 5 }

subsection { The job in virus dictionary method }

As virus Godheads are now cognizant of virus sensing methods, they are now composing the viruses so that the codifications of the virus as encrypted codifications when it is in a plan. Otherwise they write the virus plans so that the codification of itself does n't look same as the existent codification of it. Because of those two grounds, the anti virus plan can non observe the infected file by fiting the strings utilizing the virus lexicon. The other job of this method is it can non observe a new virus which does n't incorporate in the virus lexicon.

subsection { The jobs of observing a virus by its behaviour }

As this method is seeking for a leery behaviour of the file that is being scanning, a files that shows unnatural behaviour which has non been attacked by a virus or malicious package can besides be detected as an infected file by the anti virus plan. If the user gets an action against that file sometimes that non infected file can besides be deleted. So modern anti virus plans do non utilize this attack to observe a virus.

There are some bogus anti virus package which do non clean or protect the computing machines. These bogus anti virus package come with names which are similar to other existent anti virus package. When a user sees such a bogus anti virus package the user feels that this ant virus package is a existent one and so he put in than forge anti virus package into the computing machine. After put ining that fake one in the computing machine, it displays bogus messages stating there are some viruses in the computing machine and to take it from the computing machine pay some sum of money. As these sorts of bogus anti virus package are at that place with merely the purpose of gaining money, the computing machine users must aware of that sort of bogus anti virus package excessively.

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Although there are so many anti virus package to observe computing machine viruses, the latest computing machine viruses can non easy be caught by even the latest anti virus package plans as the codification of virus is encrypted. What the virus Godheads do to conceal the beginning codification of the virus is coding the codification of the virus and sends it to the computing machines. So the anti virus package can non easy understand the codification and they can non catch that file as a leery file. Some virus Godheads encrypt the codification and maintain the key to decode in another file to do it more hard for the anti virus package to happen the virus. But good anti virus package, which have used good algorithms, should be able to observe those computing machine viruses excessively. cite { 6,7 }

subsection { Most trusted anti virus package } cite { 11 }

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item BitDefender Antivirus 2010 - BitDefender is utilizing advanced heuristic sensing method and provides protection against on-line viruses, spyware, phishing cozenages and more. This provides protection by scanning web, IM and electronic mails and this is capable of coding the IM s excessively. One of the new characteristics BitDefender looking for is Active Virus Control which monitor the behaviour of a file continuously. cite { 13 }

item Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2010 - Provides protection from viruses, Trojans, bots, worms and spyware. The interfaces and tools used are advanced but this provides agreat protection against most of the existent menaces. cite { 14 }

item Webroot AntiVirus with SpySweeper 2010 - This is a desktop anti virus bundle and protect the computing machine from viruses, Trojans, worms and other figure of malware. This catches the malware before the malware does any injury to the computing machine. cite { 15 }

item Norton AntiVirus 2010 - Uses signature based protection. However provides a new characteristics like the proactive repute scanning. But uninstalling the package might do some jobs as its partial uninstallation. cite { 16 }

item ESET Nod32 Antivirus 4 - Kind of desktop anti virus package. But this does n't supply a complete security and misses some protection. This is non in the competition with other anti virus package. cite { 17 }

item AVG Anti-Virus 9 - Includes antivirus and antispyware protection. provides complette protection from harmful downloads and web citations. cite { 18 }

item F-Secure Anti-Virus 2010 - Great desktop anti virus. Has one of the most effectual scan process and trial consequences are shown to turn out that. When put ining this anti virus package, it has been automatically configured to take the other anti virus package installed to the computing machine. cite { 19 }

item G DATA AntiVirus 2011 - Uses two distinguishable antivirus scanning engines, behavioral/heuristic protection, and even self-learning fingerprinting.This provides protection against malware distributing via electronic mails and IM. The types of malware which are detected by this anti virus package are, phishing cozenages, dialers, adware, malicious books, Trojans, rootkits and worms. cite { 20 }

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section { Geting usage of a firewall }

The firewall is a sort of a plan design to protect the computing machine from harmful things that are coming from the cyberspace. Firewalls are divided into two classs as 'hardware firewall ' and 'software firewall ' .

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Hardware firewalls are some sort of little hardware which can command the informations coming from multiple computing machine systems. Software firewalls are sort of package that have the ability to barricade leery informations coming to the computing machine from the cyberspace. So to protect the computing machine from viruses and other sort of malicious package a package firewall and hardware firewall can be use. cite { 5 }

section { Best patterns to protect the computing machine from computing machine viruses }

Though there are 1000s of anti virus package are at that place, the computing machine users are besides holding the duty of protecting the computing machine when utilizing the computing machine. They have to follow some best patterns when they use a computing machine.

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item Although the computing machine user is the proprietor of the computing machine he should non ever log into the computing machine with the decision maker privileges. If they log into the computing machine as a normal user, some sorts of viruses will non be able to come in into the computing machine.

item A computing machine user should avoid from put ining some anti virus package or some other package in some other individual 's computing machine.

item As some viruses are coming with electronic mail fond regards, when opening electronic mails it is good to non to open electronic mails from unknown references.

item When downloading and put ining anti virus package, download a recommended anti virus package.

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section { Decision }

Harmonizing to the research workers, each and everyday over 200 computing machine viruses which can destruct a whole computing machine system within a few seconds are released by the computing machine virus Godheads. The worst thing that result an inflexion is fring informations the reside in the computing machine.

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Most of the clip, these sort of devastations happen because of the deficiency of consciousness of the computing machine users about the computing machine viruses. To extenuate the hazard of infecting a computing machine virus to a user 's computing machine, the chief thing we can make is do the computing machine users aware about the computing machine viruses, hazards of infecting a computing machine virus and avoiding from computing machine viruses.

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The people who have an thought about computing machine viruses most of the clip trust anti virus plans. But merely put ining an anti virus package is non plenty to protect the computing machine from computing machine viruses. The computing machine users besides have the duty to protect the computing machine from computing machine viruses. As most of the clip the computing machine viruses can come with the e-mail fond regards, the electronic mails from unknown references should non be opened. When downloading something from a web site the users should utilize merely the trusted web sites and recommended package. But now there are nil called trusted web sites. Even the package downloaded from Microsoft 's web site may incorporate viruses. Some viruses can non come in into the computing machine if the user is logging into the computing machine with user privilege. So it is good to usually log into the computing machine with the user privilege.

As viruses attack merely the feasible files, the write permission to those files can be restricted.

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After put ining an anti virus package plan in a computing machine, to acquire the best protection from that anti virus, maintaining it up to day of the month is more of import. But though there is an anti virus plan installed in the computing machine, when stop uping external removable devices into the computing machine, it should be scanned.

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But the concluding decision which can come through this reappraisal is that though there are many protection methods, that are available in the universe, a computing machine user can non be wholly safe from the computing machine viruses. That means any of the computing machine protection methods is non perfect in protecting computing machines from computing machine malware.

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end { thebibliography }

end { papers }