Firewall
A firewall is a part of a computer system or network that is designed to block unauthorized access while permitting authorized communications. It is a device or set of devices configured to permit, deny, encrypt, decrypt, or proxy all (in and out) computer traffic between different security domains based upon a set of rules and other criteria.
Firewalls can be implemented in either hardware or software, or a combination of both. Firewalls are frequently used to prevent unauthorized Internet users from accessing private networks connected to the Internet, especially intranets. All messages entering or leaving the intranet pass through the firewall, which examines each message and blocks those that do not meet the specified security criteria.
Many users complain of certain firewalls conflicting with legitimate programs or generally not working. The Internet slang term for these is "cottonwall".
There are several types of firewall techniques:
Packet filter: Packet filtering inspects each packet passing through the network and accepts or rejects it based on user-defined rules. Although difficult to configure, it is fairly effective and mostly transparent to its users. In addition, it is susceptible to IP spoofing.
Application gateway: Applies security mechanisms to specific applications, such as FTP and Telnet servers. This is very effective, but can impose a performance degradation.
Circuit-level gateway: Applies security mechanisms when a TCP or UDP connection is established. Once the connection has been made, packets can flow between the hosts without further checking.
Proxy server: Intercepts all messages entering and leaving the network. The proxy server effectively hides the true network addresses.
Function
A firewall is a dedicated appliance, or software running on a computer, which inspects network traffic passing through it, and denies or permits passage based on a set of rules.
It is a software or hardware that is normally placed between a protected network and an unprotected network and acts like a gate to protect assets to ensure that nothing private goes out and nothing malicious comes in.
A firewall's basic task is to regulate some of the flow of traffic between computer networks of different trust levels. Typical examples are the Internet which is a zone with no trust and an internal network which is a zone of higher trust. A zone with an intermediate trust level, situated between the Internet and a trusted internal network, is often referred to as a "perimeter network" or Demilitarized zone (DMZ).
A firewall's function within a network is similar to physical firewalls with fire doors in building construction. In the former case, it is used to prevent network intrusion to the private network. In the latter case, it is intended to contain and delay structural fire from spreading to adjacent structures.
Without proper configuration, a firewall can often become worthless. Standard security practices dictate a "default-deny" firewall ruleset, in which the only network connections which are allowed are the ones that have been explicitly allowed. Unfortunately, such a configuration requires detailed understanding of the network applications and endpoints required for the organization's day-to-day operation. Many businesses lack such understanding, and therefore implement a "default-allow" ruleset, in which all traffic is allowed unless it has been specifically blocked. This configuration makes inadvertent network connections and system compromise much more likely.
History
The term "firewall" originally meant a wall to confine a fire or potential fire within a building, cf. firewall (construction). Later uses refer to similar structures, such as the metal sheet separating the engine compartment of a vehicle or aircraft from the passenger compartment.
Firewall technology emerged in the late 1980s when the Internet was a fairly new technology in terms of its global use and connectivity. The predecessors to firewalls for network security were the routers used in the late 1980s to separate networks from one another. The view of the Internet as a relatively small community of compatible users who valued openness for sharing and collaboration was ended by a number of major internet security breaches which occurred in the late 1980s:
Clifford Stoll's discovery of German spies tampering with his system
Bill Cheswick's "Evening with Berferd" 1992 in which he set up a simple electronic jail to observe an attacker
In 1988 an employee at the NASA Ames Research Center in California sent a memo by email to his colleagues that read,
“
We are currently under attack from an Internet VIRUS! It has hit Berkeley, UC San Dieo, Lawrence Livermore, Stanford, and NASA Ames.
”
The Morris Worm spread itself through multiple vulnerabilities in the machines of the time. Although it was not malicious in intent, the Morris Worm was the first large scale attack on Internet security; the online community was neither expecting an attack nor prepared to deal with one.
First generation - packet filters
The first paper published on firewall technology was in 1988, when engineers from Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) developed filter systems known as packet filter firewalls. This fairly basic system was the first generation of what would become a highly evolved and technical internet security feature. At AT&T Bell Labs, Bill Cheswick and Steve Bellovin were continuing their research in packet filtering and developed a working model for their own company based upon their original first generation architecture.
Packet filters act by inspecting the "packets" which represent the basic unit of data transfer between computers on the Internet. If a packet matches the packet filter's set of rules, the packet filter will drop (silently discard) the packet, or reject it (discard it, and send "error responses" to the source).
This type of packet filtering pays no attention to whether a packet is part of an existing stream of traffic (it stores no information on connection "state"). Instead, it filters each packet based only on information contained in the packet itself (most commonly using a combination of the packet's source and destination address, its protocol, and, for TCP and UDP traffic, the port number).
TCP and UDP protocols comprise most communication over the Internet, and because TCP and UDP traffic by convention uses well known ports for particular types of traffic, a "stateless" packet filter can distinguish between, and thus control, those types of traffic (such as web browsing, remote printing, email transmission, file transfer), unless the machines on each side of the packet filter are both using the same non-standard ports.
Second generation - Application layer
The key benefit of application layer filtering is that it can "understand" certain applications and protocols (such as File Transfer Protocol, DNS, or web browsing), and it can detect whether an unwanted protocol is being sneaked through on a non-standard port or whether a protocol is being abused in any harmful way.
Third generation - "stateful" filters
From 1989-1990 three colleagues from AT&T Bell Laboratories, Dave Presetto, Janardan Sharma, and Kshitij Nigam developed the second generation of firewalls, calling them circuit level firewalls.
Third generation firewalls in addition regard placement of each individual packet within the packet series. This technology is generally referred to as a stateful packet inspection as it maintains records of all connections passing through the firewall and is able to determine whether a packet is either the start of a new connection, a part of an existing connection, or is an invalid packet. Though there is still a set of static rules in such a firewall, the state of a connection can in itself be one of the criteria which trigger specific rules. For example Check Point Firewall NGX R65 does the stateful inspection.
This type of firewall can help prevent attacks which exploit existing connections, or certain Denial-of-service attacks.
Subsequent developments
In 1992, Bob Braden and Annette DeSchon at the University of Southern California (USC) were refining the concept of a firewall. The product known as "Visas" was the first system to have a visual integration interface with colours and icons, which could be easily implemented to and accessed on a computer operating system such as Microsoft's Windows or Apple's MacOS. In 1994 an Israeli company called Check Point Software Technologies built this into readily available software known as FireWall-1.
The existing deep packet inspection functionality of modern firewalls can be shared by Intrusion-prevention systems (IPS).
Currently, the Middlebox Communication Working Group of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is working on standardizing protocols for managing firewalls and other middleboxes.
Another axis of development is about integrating identity of users into Firewall rules. Many firewalls provide such features by binding user identities to IP or MAC addresses, which is very approximate and can be easily turned around. The NuFW firewall provides real identity based firewalling, by requesting user's signature for each connection.
Types
There are several classifications of firewalls depending on where the communication is taking place, where the communication is intercepted and the state that is being traced.
Network layer and packet filters
Network layer firewalls, also called packet filters, operate at a relatively low level of the TCP/IP protocol stack, not allowing packets to pass through the firewall unless they match the established rule set. The firewall administrator may define the rules; or default rules may apply. The term "packet filter" originated in the context of BSD operating systems.
Network layer firewalls generally fall into two sub-categories, stateful and stateless. Stateful firewalls maintain context about active sessions, and use that "state information" to speed packet processing. Any existing network connection can be described by several properties, including source and destination IP address, UDP or TCP ports, and the current stage of the connection's lifetime (including session initiation, handshaking, data transfer, or completion connection). If a packet does not match an existing connection, it will be evaluated according to the ruleset for new connections. If a packet matches an existing connection based on comparison with the firewall's state table, it will be allowed to pass without further processing.
Stateless firewalls require less memory, and can be faster for simple filters that require less time to filter than to look up a session. They may also be necessary for filtering stateless network protocols that have no concept of a session. However, they cannot make more complex decisions based on what stage communications between hosts have reached.
Modern firewalls can filter traffic based on many packet attributes like source IP address, source port, destination IP address or port, destination service like WWW or FTP. They can filter based on protocols, TTL values, netblock of originator, domain name of the source, and many other attributes.
Commonly used packet filters on various versions of Unix are ipf (various), ipfw (FreeBSD/Mac OS X), pf (OpenBSD, and all other BSDs), iptables/ipchains (Linux).
Application-layer
Application-layer firewalls work on the application level of the TCP/IP stack (i.e., all browser traffic, or all telnet or ftp traffic), and may intercept all packets traveling to or from an application. They block other packets (usually dropping them without acknowledgment to the sender). In principle, application firewalls can prevent all unwanted outside traffic from reaching protected machines.
On inspecting all packets for improper content, firewalls can restrict or prevent outright the spread of networked computer worms and trojans. The additional inspection criteria can add extra latency to the forwarding of packets to their destination.
Proxies
A proxy device (running either on dedicated hardware or as software on a general-purpose machine) may act as a firewall by responding to input packets (connection requests, for example) in the manner of an application, whilst blocking other packets.
Proxies make tampering with an internal system from the external network more difficult and misuse of one internal system would not necessarily cause a security breach exploitable from outside the firewall (as long as the application proxy remains intact and properly configured). Conversely, intruders may hijack a publicly-reachable system and use it as a proxy for their own purposes; the proxy then masquerades as that system to other internal machines. While use of internal address spaces enhances security, crackers may still employ methods such as IP spoofing to attempt to pass packets to a target network.
Network address translation
Firewalls often have network address translation (NAT) functionality, and the hosts protected behind a firewall commonly have addresses in the "private address range", as defined in RFC 1918. Firewalls often have such functionality to hide the true address of protected hosts. Originally, the NAT function was developed to address the limited number of IPv4 routable addresses that could be used or assigned to companies or individuals as well as reduce both the amount and therefore cost of obtaining enough public addresses for every computer in an organization. Hiding the addresses of protected devices has become an increasingly important defense against network reconnaissance

Remove Antivirus 360. Description and removal instructions
Antivirus 360 is a brand new fake spyware remover, program with evil intent. Parasite, as many of its kind, tries to push user into purchasing of a licensed version with falsified threats. The name Antivirus 360 sounds very similar to respected security tool Norton 360 by Symantec. Application makes its own way into user’s computer via trojan Zlob or by manual download. After installation, parasite, flood user with numerous pop-ups with imaginary virus infections and system risks. After these notifications Antivirus360 advertises as an effective program that is able to fix all these problems, and of course it is paid one. Program is very dangerous, it mark windows files as an infections or serious threats. The main purpose of it is to show pop-ups and suck money. About fixing of infections you can forget it wasn’t created for that. As a parasite, Antivirus360 can do many serious problems for users, slowdown computer, limit connection of internet, increase loses of personal data and even brake your machine. We recommend you scan your system with reputable spyware remover programs to avoid problems.
Antivirus 360 properties:
• Changes browser settings
• Shows commercial adverts
• Connects itself to the internet
• Hides from the user
• Stays resident in background
Killing malicious processes and removing harmful files
Processes
Each program is a collection of files. To start the program you launch an executable file that runs the entire program or some of its components.
When you launch an executable, part of its code is being loaded into computer’s memory. This code is the process. It allows the system to run the corresponding program. In simple phrase, every running program is represented by its main process (or task). If such process doesn’t exist, the application doesn’t run at the moment.
Parasites are programs and also have processes. However, unlike regular software, their processes run without user knoledge. You cannot terminate a parasite like a common application by simply closing its window. That’s why you have to learn how to kill malicious processes.

Files
Each program consists of files. Even spyware, a virus or a different parasite - all have their own files. Removing a parasite often means deleting all its files. However, some files cannot be easily erased. You cannot delete the file while it’s used by an active application. Furthermore, some files are "invisible".
Imagine the situation: your anti-spyware program keeps detecting a parasite, and you know where its files reside. You open the corresponding folder, but see nothing in there! The parasite continues performing malicious actions and its files remain in that "empty" directory. You wonder how this happens?
Files can really be "invisible". However, it’s not their exceptional feature - the operating system simply hides them from you. Such OS behavior can be a result of recent malware activity. Fortunately, there are several ways to make your system display such files, and thus allow you to delete them.
In this guide manual process termination methods are described. These methods can be applied to all modern Windows operating system versions. The following instructions also explain how to find a file, make it visible (in case it’s hidden) and completely remove it from the system. This information is also fully applicable to folders (directories)
. Start Windows Task Manager
Use the following key combination: press CTRL+ALT+DEL or CTRL+SHIFT+ESC. This will open the Windows Task Manager.
If that didn’t work, try another way. Press the Start button and click on the Run… option. This will start the Run tool. Type in taskmgr and press OK. This should start the Windows Task Manager.
Find and terminate the process
Within the Windows Task Manager click on the Processes tab (it is in the red box). This will bring the complete list of all active tasks. Find the process by name. Names are in the first column from the left. Click on the Image Name button (it is designated by the blue box) to sort tasks in alphabetical order. Then scroll the list to find required process. Select it with your mouse or keyboard and click on the End Process button (in the green box). This will kill the process.

Anti-Virus Strategy Systems
Where do our anti-virus strategy systems fit in this picture? We hope to explore some answers to that question by first examining the components of our model system. Keep in mind, however, that the goal of this paper is not to provide you with answers, but rather to stimulate new ways of thinking about the problems we face daily.

Components
Each of the components in Diagram 1 contributes to the overall health of the system. Conversely, each can contribute to the illness of the system. For instance, our computer can contribute to the health of the system by functioning properly. If the hard drive crashes, a disharmonic condition is introduced. Our managers contribute to the overall well-being of the system, as long as they perform correctly. However, if one of them intentionally or unintentionally infects a computer with a virus, he or she contributes to the illness of the system. Our software contributes to the wellness by keeping employees reassured, and by keeping viruses out. If it is disabled by an employee desirous of more speed upon boot, or if it does not do its job in virus detection, it contributes to the illness or chaos in the system. There are other factors not shown, as the anti-virus strategy system model does not stop at the boundary of the company. The model includes your Internet service provider, virus writers, makers of electronic mail front-ends, anti-virus product tech support people and more. For the purposes of this paper, we must draw an artificial boundary. We mention the rest to give you food for thought, and to illustrate that boundaries are not static.
Anti-virus Strategy System - The Environment
Programs Policy and Procedures
(Selection, Implementation and Maintenance)
Where do we begin in examining the interaction of our chosen system elements? Let's start with the software selection. Anti-virus software is selected based on a wide number of criteria (8). While some of these criteria are beneficial, several are counterproductive at best (9). We need to be aware of exactly how our company's software is being chosen, and not leave this vital aspect of software selection up to people who do not have the experience or expertise to make a selection that will maximize your organisation's protection against viruses.
Does your anti-virus software detect all of the viruses which are a real threat to your organisation? Before you glibly answer yes, you should recognise that all products are far from created equal, and that even the best products will not achieve this goal if not properly maintained. Consider the following:
When asked what happens to two blocks of copper initially at different temperatures left alone together in an insulated container, students will reply that the blocks will come to the same temperature. Of course, if asked how they know, they usually say "Because it is a law of nature"...the opposite is true...it is a law of nature because it happens.[10]
Apply this to your anti-virus software. Does it catch viruses because it is anti-virus software? If so, you can depend on it, as its name defines what it is. But, if you even loosely apply this concept, you will see that it is anti-virus software because it catches viruses - and if it does not, then what does that make it?
Remember the following quote:
'If you call a tail a leg, how many legs has a dog?''Five?''No, Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg' [11]
Maintenance of your software is another critical issue. Maintenance refers not to the upgrade, but to the maintaining of the software on a daily basis. What does it require to run? Are you supplying what it needs to live? Or is it merely surviving? Does it have adequate memory, power, disk space to run optimally and lessen the chance your employees will disable it? Is it in an environment free from other programs which may hinder its performance? If you cannot answer yes to these questions, you are not providing an environment for this element of your strategy system which will allow it to remain viable. It will not survive. Like living systems, the anti-virus strategy system requires a favorable environment, else the system will adapt. Unfortunately, in the case of this system, adaptation can mean software becoming disabled by the user component of the system, or overridden by a competing software component. All this, and we have not even added viruses which by design cause a problem to the system by the introduction of instability.
Even if you have the best anti-virus software, and are running it optimally, there can still be problems. Software is just one part of the strategy system. Policies and procedures play an important role in the overall strategy. Even the viruses we mentioned earlier play a part in this system. Then there are the least predictable aspects of the system, the human beings. How complex is this system? How much should we expect the people involved to understand?
Ackoff defines an abstract system as one in which all of the elements are concepts, whereas a concrete system is one in which at least two of the elements are objects [12]. As you can see, our system is concrete. It is also by design an open system, one into which new components may be introduced. Some of these components are by nature 'unknown' (i.e. actions of people, how software may react, viruses which may appear).
When these components are introduced, we have to consider first how they behave on their own. Next, we have to consider how they would behave in combination with any and/or all of the other elements. Finally, we have to consider how 'things' in general will be if neither of the objects are present. In its most simple form, a two-part system would require four equations, but of course, you can see that as the number of elements increases, the number of interactive equations grows by leaps and bounds

Antivirus kernel
The antivirus kernel of avast! for Linux is identical to the kernel for Windows systems.
The latest version of the avast! antivirus kernel features outstanding detection abilities, together with high performance. You can expect 100% detection of In-the-Wild viruses (viruses already spreading between users) and excellent detection of Trojan horses with minimum false positives.
The kernel is certified by ICSA Labs; it frequently takes part in the tests of Virus Bulletin magazine, often yielding the VB100 award.
Like avast! for Windows, the avast! engine for Linux also features outstanding unpacking support. It can scan inside almost the same number of archives as under Windows, with the exception of MAPI, CAB, ACE, CHM, 7ZIP and NTFS streams. The following archives can be scanned: ARJ, ZIP, MIME (+ all associated formats), DBX (Outlook Express archives), RAR, TAR, GZIP, BZIP2, ZOO, ARC, LHA/LHX, TNEF (winmail.dat), CPIO, RPM, ISO, and SIS. It also supports a number of executable packers (such as PKLite, Diet, UPX, ASPack, FSG, MEW, etc.).
User interface
The Simple User Interface is used to start on-demand scanning, to work with the results and to change the various scan options.
The user interface requires GTK+ 2.x libraries. If you do not have these libraries installed on your system, the libraries from the installation package will be used.
Command line scanner
Experienced users will appreciate the classic on-demand scanner, controlled from the command line. It enables files to be scanned in specified directories and both on local and remote volumes. Of course, the command line scanner also works on volumes mounted over a network.
The program is very flexible and has many additional arguments and switches. It is able to generate extensive report files that can be used for analysis.
The scanner is able to run in STDIN/STDOUT mode as a pipe filter. This mode is intended to be used in shell scripts.
Automatic updates
Updates of the virus database are another key need in virus protection. Avast! is usually updated at least 3 times a week (even more frequently during virus outbreaks), providing you with the most up-to-date definitions to efficiently protect your system against the latest threats.
Virus chest
The Linux version also has a chest directory where suspicious files are stored. These files can be deleted, or it is possible to work with them later. It is also possible to submit the files to our virus lab for further analysis.
Internationalization
Currently, avast! for Linux is available in the following languages: English, Czech, Portuguese (Brazil), Bulgarian, Finnish, French

Free virus protection for your home PC
New viruses are being found "in the wild" all the time. Further, the speed at which these new viruses spread is increasing all the time. A key problem is not that antivirus programs do not detect such viruses, but the fact that most users do not use any antivirus program at all or, perhaps worse, the antivirus software and / or virus definitions database is out of date.
ALWIL Software, the producer of avast!, decided in June 2001 to help to solve this situation by offering avast! Home Edition free of charge for home users who do not use their computer for profit. To get industry leading antivirus protection for your home PC, download the software, and then register it.
The whole process is very simple: you need to download the program from the avast! 4 Home Download page, selecting the appropriate language. Then you need to install it, which is a mostly an automatic process. Initially, if you don't register straight away, you'll install the trial version, which is fully functional for sixty days. During this period, you can register yourself on the avast! 4 Home Free Registration page, and you will receive your license key by E-mail within 24 hours. Insert this key into the avast! 4 Home product, and you will receive the non-restricted version of avast! 4 Home Edition, including access to the update service (the incremental update of the virus database), for one year. After this period you can reregister to obtain a new free license key.
avast! 4 Home Edition can only be used by home users that do NOT use their computer for profit. If you do not meet both conditions, you should download avast! 4 Professional Edition instead, which may also be trialed for up to 60 days before you will need to purchase a valid license key.
avast! 4 Home Edition is a complete antivirus solution, fully able to find computer viruses, to create and check the integrity of programs installed, to test executed programs and opened documents, to test and check email and other functions. Scanning is also available in the shell extension and screen server.
You can read about avast! 4 Home Edition here. You can get avast! 4 Home Edition on our download page. You can later register it on a special avast! 4 Home Edition Free Registration page, where you can also request a renewal registration. You can also access our frequently asked questions section in case you are having difficulties with your product, or visit the forums where many questions have been or can be answered about the product.

Help prevent computer viruses

Nothing can guarantee the security of your computer 100 percent.
You can continue to improve your computer's security and decrease the possibility of infection by using a firewall, keeping your system up-to-date, maintaining a current antivirus software subscription, and following a few best practices.
Tip: Because no security method is guaranteed, it's important to back up critical files on a regular basis before you encounter a virus or other problems.
Steps to help avoid viruses:

Use an Internet firewall.Note: Windows Vista and Windows XP with SP2 has a firewall already built-in and turned on by default.
Visit Microsoft Update to verify your settings and check for updates.Note: If you've installed the most recent version of Microsoft Office, Microsoft Update will also update your Office programs. If you have an earlier version of Office, use Office Update.
Subscribe to antivirus software and keep it current.

Never open an e-mail attachment from someone you don't know.
Avoid opening an e-mail attachment from someone you know, unless you know exactly what the attachment is. The sender may be unaware that it contains a virus.
Use a standard user account unless you need to use an Administrator Account. For more information, see Why use a standard user account instead of an administrator account.
What about spyware?

Although spyware programs are different from viruses, some can behave like viruses and pose similar and other risks. To help protect against spyware, use antispyware software such as Windows Defender. Windows Defender comes with Windows Vista. If you use Windows XP SP2, you can download Windows Defender for no charge.

COMPUTER VIRUS
A computer virus is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer without the permission or knowledge of the owner. The term "virus" is also commonly but erroneously used to refer to other types of malware, adware, and spyware programs that do not have the reproductive ability. A true virus can only spread from one computer to another (in some form of executable code) when its host is taken to the target computer; for instance because a user sent it over a network or the Internet, or carried it on a removable medium such as a floppy disk, CD, DVD, or USB drive. Viruses can increase their chances of spreading to other computers by infecting files on a network file system or a file system that is accessed by another computer.
Infection strategies
In order to replicate itself, a virus must be permitted to execute code and write to memory. For this reason, many viruses attach themselves to executable files that may be part of legitimate programs. If a user attempts to launch an infected program, the virus' code may be executed simultaneously. Viruses can be divided into two types based on their behavior when they are executed. Nonresident viruses immediately search for other hosts that can be infected, infect those targets, and finally transfer control to the application program they infected. Resident viruses do not search for hosts when they are started. Instead, a resident virus loads itself into memory on execution and transfers control to the host program. The virus stays active in the background and infects new hosts when those files are accessed by other programs or the operating system itself.

Nonresident viruses
Nonresident viruses can be thought of as consisting of a finder module and a replication module. The finder module is responsible for finding new files to infect. For each new executable file the finder module encounters, it calls the replication module to infect that file.

Resident viruses
Resident viruses contain a replication module that is similar to the one that is employed by nonresident viruses. This module, however, is not called by a finder module. The virus loads the replication module into memory when it is executed instead and ensures that this module is executed each time the operating system is called to perform a certain operation. the replication module can be called, for example, each time the operating system executes a file. In this case the virus infects every suitable program that is executed on the computer.
Resident viruses are sometimes subdivided into a category of fast infectors and a category of slow infectors. Fast infectors are designed to infect as many files as possible. A fast infector, for instance, can infect every potential host file that is accessed. This poses a special problem when using anti-virus software, since a virus scanner will access every potential host file on a computer when it performs a system-wide scan. If the virus scanner fails to notice that such a virus is present in memory the virus can "piggy-back" on the virus scanner and in this way infect all files that are scanned. Fast infectors rely on their fast infection rate to spread. The disadvantage of this method is that infecting many files may make detection more likely, because the virus may slow down a computer or perform many suspicious actions that can be noticed by anti-virus software. Slow infectors, on the other hand, are designed to infect hosts infrequently. Some slow infectors, for instance, only infect files when they are copied. Slow infectors are designed to avoid detection by limiting their actions: they are less likely to slow down a computer noticeably and will, at most, infrequently trigger anti-virus software that detects suspicious behavior by programs. The slow infector approach, however, does not seem very successful.
Methods to avoid detection
In order to avoid detection by users, some viruses employ different kinds of deception. Some old viruses, especially on the MS-DOS platform, make sure that the "last modified" date of a host file stays the same when the file is infected by the virus. This approach does not fool anti-virus software, however, especially those which maintain and date Cyclic redundancy checks on file changes.
Some viruses can infect files without increasing their sizes or damaging the files. They accomplish this by overwriting unused areas of executable files. These are called cavity viruses. For example the CIH virus, or Chernobyl Virus, infects Portable Executable files. Because those files have many empty gaps, the virus, which was 1 KB in length, did not add to the size of the file.
Some viruses try to avoid detection by killing the tasks associated with antivirus software before it can detect them.
As computers and operating systems grow larger and more complex, old hiding techniques need to be updated or replaced. Defending a computer against viruses may demand that a file system migrate towards detailed and explicit permission for every kind of file access.

Avoiding bait files and other undesirable hosts
A virus needs to infect hosts in order to spread further. In some cases, it might be a bad idea to infect a host program. For example, many anti-virus programs perform an integrity check of their own code. Infecting such programs will therefore increase the likelihood that the virus is detected. For this reason, some viruses are programmed not to infect programs that are known to be part of anti-virus software. Another type of host that viruses sometimes avoid is bait files. Bait files (or goat files) are files that are specially created by anti-virus software, or by anti-virus professionals themselves, to be infected by a virus. These files can be created for various reasons, all of which are related to the detection of the virus:
Anti-virus professionals can use bait files to take a sample of a virus (i.e. a copy of a program file that is infected by the virus). It is more practical to store and exchange a small, infected bait file, than to exchange a large application program that has been infected by the virus.
Anti-virus professionals can use bait files to study the behavior of a virus and evaluate detection methods. This is especially useful when the virus is polymorphic. In this case, the virus can be made to infect a large number of bait files. The infected files can be used to test whether a virus scanner detects all versions of the virus.
Some anti-virus software employs bait files that are accessed regularly. When these files are modified, the anti-virus software warns the user that a virus is probably active on the system.
Since bait files are used to detect the virus, or to make detection possible, a virus can benefit from not infecting them. Viruses typically do this by avoiding suspicious programs, such as small program files or programs that contain certain patterns of 'garbage instructions'.
A related strategy to make baiting difficult is sparse infection. Sometimes, sparse infectors do not infect a host file that would be a suitable candidate for infection in other circumstances. For example, a virus can decide on a random basis whether to infect a file or not, or a virus can only infect host files on particular days of the week.
Stealth
Some viruses try to trick anti-virus software by intercepting its requests to the operating system. A virus can hide itself by intercepting the anti-virus software’s request to read the file and passing the request to the virus, instead of the OS. The virus can then return an uninfected version of the file to the anti-virus software, so that it seems that the file is "clean". Modern anti-virus software employs various techniques to counter stealth mechanisms of viruses. The only completely reliable method to avoid stealth is to boot from a medium that is known to be clean.
Self-modification
Most modern antivirus programs try to find virus-patterns inside ordinary programs by scanning them for so-called virus signatures. A signature is a characteristic byte-pattern that is part of a certain virus or family of viruses. If a virus scanner finds such a pattern in a file, it notifies the user that the file is infected. The user can then delete, or (in some cases) "clean" or "heal" the infected file. Some viruses employ techniques that make detection by means of signatures difficult but probably not impossible. These viruses modify their code on each infection. That is, each infected file contains a different variant of the virus.
Encryption with a variable key
A more advanced method is the use of simple encryption to encipher the virus. In this case, the virus consists of a small decrypting module and an encrypted copy of the virus code. If the virus is encrypted with a different key for each infected file, the only part of the virus that remains constant is the decrypting module, which would (for example) be appended to the end. In this case, a virus scanner cannot directly detect the virus using signatures, but it can still detect the decrypting module, which still makes indirect detection of the virus possible. Since these would be symmetric keys, stored on the infected host, it is in fact entirely possible to decrypt the final virus, but this is probably not required, since self-modifying code is such a rarity that it may be reason for virus scanners to at least flag the file as suspicious.
An old, but compact, encryption involves XORing each byte in a virus with a constant, so that the exclusive-or operation had only to be repeated for decryption. It is suspicious code that modifies itself, so the code to do the encryption/decryption may be part of the signature in many virus definitions.
Polymorphic code
Polymorphic code was the first technique that posed a serious threat to virus scanners. Just like regular encrypted viruses, a polymorphic virus infects files with an encrypted copy of itself, which is decoded by a decryption module. In the case of polymorphic viruses, however, this decryption module is also modified on each infection. A well-written polymorphic virus therefore has no parts which remain identical between infections, making it very difficult to detect directly using signatures. Anti-virus software can detect it by decrypting the viruses using an emulator, or by statistical pattern analysis of the encrypted virus body. To enable polymorphic code, the virus has to have a polymorphic engine (also called mutating engine or mutation engine) somewhere in its encrypted body. See Polymorphic code for technical detail on how such engines operate.
Some viruses employ polymorphic code in a way that constrains the mutation rate of the virus significantly. For example, a virus can be programmed to mutate only slightly over time, or it can be programmed to refrain from mutating when it infects a file on a computer that already contains copies of the virus. The advantage of using such slow polymorphic code is that it makes it more difficult for anti-virus professionals to obtain representative samples of the virus, because bait files that are infected in one run will typically contain identical or similar samples of the virus. This will make it more likely that the detection by the virus scanner will be unreliable, and that some instances of the virus may be able to avoid detection.
Metamorphic code
To avoid being detected by emulation, some viruses rewrite themselves completely each time they are to infect new executables. Viruses that use this technique are said to be metamorphic. To enable metamorphism, a metamorphic engine is needed. A metamorphic virus is usually very large and complex. For example, W32/Simile consisted of over 14000 lines of Assembly language code, 90% of which is part of the metamorphic engine.

Traditional antivirus isn't enough!
"Traditional" viruses and spyware keep on growing - every day we see tens of thousands of new examples in our labs. And online criminals are getting smarter– they keep inventing types of threat that have never been seen before, usually aimed at stealing your bank account, credit card details or other personal information, so we’ve developed an extra layer of identity theft protection that sits on top of traditional antivirus and antispyware software. It looks for changes in your PC's behavior that are caused by new threats – and then stops them in their tracks.
Threats can be here today, gone tomorrow!
Cybercriminals are also setting up their own web sites – or poisoning legitimate websites – to distribute all sorts of malware over the internet. These web “exploits” are often around for less than a day, shutting up shop once they’ve infected enough people for that day. So to counter this, we’ve developed real-time software protection that gives you safety ratings for web pages and stops you opening the bad ones at the only time that matters – when you’re about to click the link.

What is a computer virus?

Computer viruses are small software programs that are designed to spread from one computer to another and to interfere with computer operation.

A virus might corrupt or delete data on your computer, use your e-mail program to spread itself to other computers, or even erase everything on your hard disk.

Viruses are most easily spread by attachments in e-mail messages or instant messaging messages. That is why it is essential that you never open e-mail attachments unless you know who it's from and you are expecting it.

Viruses can be disguised as attachments of funny images, greeting cards, or audio and video files.

Viruses also spread through downloads on the Internet. They can be hidden in illicit software or other files or programs you might download.

To help avoid viruses, it's essential that you keep your computer current with the latest updates and antivirus tools, stay informed about recent threats, and that you follow a few basic rules when you surf the Internet, download files, and open attachments.

Once a virus is on your computer, its type or the method it used to get there is not as important as removing it and preventing further infection.

Virus, Malware, adware, & Spyware:

A computer virus is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer without the permission or knowledge of the owner. The term "virus" is also commonly but erroneously used to refer to other types of malware, adware, and spyware programs that do not have the reproductive ability. A true virus can only spread from one computer to another (in some form of executable code) when its host is taken to the target computer; for instance because a user sent it over a network or the Internet, or carried it on a removable medium such as a floppy disk, CD, DVD, or USB drive. Viruses can increase their chances of spreading to other computers by infecting files on a network file system or a file system that is accessed by another computer.

The term "computer virus" is sometimes used as a catch-all phrase to include all types of malware. Malware includes computer viruses, worms, trojan horses, most rootkits, spyware, dishonest adware, crimeware, and other malicious and unwanted software), including true viruses. Viruses are sometimes confused with computer worms and Trojan horses, which are technically different. A worm can exploit security vulnerabilities to spread itself to other computers without needing to be transferred as part of a host, and a Trojan horse is a program that appears harmless but has a hidden agenda. Worms and Trojans, like viruses, may cause harm to either a computer system's hosted data, functional performance, or networking throughput, when they are executed. Some viruses and other malware have symptoms noticeable to the computer user, but many are surreptitious.

Most personal computers are now connected to the Internet and to local area networks, facilitating the spread of malicious code. Today's viruses may also take advantage of network services such as the World Wide Web, e-mail, Instant Messaging, and file sharing systems to spread.

Some Viruses Don't Do...........

Computer viruses can not infect write protected disks or infect written documents. Viruses do not infect compressed files, unless the file was infected prior to the compression.

Viruses do not infect computer hardware, such as monitors or computer chips; they only infect software.

In addition, Macintosh viruses do not infect DOS / Window computer software and vice versa. For example, the Melissa virus incident of late 1998 and the ILOVEYOU virus of 2000 worked only on Window based machines and could not operate on Macintosh computers.

One further note-> viruses do not necessarily let you know they are present in your machine, even after being destructive. If your computer is not operating properly, it is a good practice to check for viruses with a current "virus checking" program.

How do Viruses Spread?

Viruses begin to work and spread when you start up the program or application of which the virus is present.

For example, a word processing program that contains a virus will place the virus in memory every time the word processing program is run.

Once in memory, one of a number of things can happen. The virus may be programmed to attach to other applications, disks or folders. It may infect a network if given the opportunity.

Viruses behave in different ways. Some viruses stay active only when the application it is part of is running.

Turn the computer off and the virus is inactive. Other viruses will operate every time you turn on your computer after infecting a system file or network.

How to Prevent a Virus Invasion!

1. Load only software from original disks or CD's. Pirated or copied software is always a risk for a virus.
2. Execute only programs of which you are familiar as to their origin. Programs sent by email should always be suspicious.
3. Computer uploads and "system configuration" changes should always be performed by the person who is responsible for the computer. Password protection should be employed.
4. Check all shareware and free programs downloaded from on-line services with a virus checking program.
5. Purchase a virus program that runs as you boot or work your computer. Up-date it frequently.

Trojan Horses:

A trojan horse is not a virus. It is a program that you run because you think it will serve a useful purpose such as a game or provides entertainment. Like a "trojan horse" it serves not as it claims, but to damage files or perhaps plants a virus into your computer.

A trojan horse does not replicate or spread like a virus. Most virus checking programs detect trojan horses.

Trojan.Packed.Win32.Black.a

Brief Description: The Packed.Win32.Black.a detection identifies files that are packed with a stolen version of the Themida software protection program.

Stolen versions of this program (which are usable with leaked licenses) can be used to hide malware. Identifying a file that has been packed by a stolen version is therefore a precautionary measure against potentially malicious files.

Visible Symptoms: N/A

Technical description: Some antiviruses detect files packed by stolen version of the Themida software protection program as Trojan.Packed.Win32.Black.a. Please note that clean files which have been packed using a stolen version may also be detected.

Propagation: N/A

Removal instruction: Try to test suspicious files with different antiviruses.

Trojan-Downloader.WMA.GetCodec.d

Brief Description: Trojan-Downloader.WMA.GetCodec compromises system by connecting to the internet to download fake video codecs via Windows Media Player and entince user to install them on the system.

Visible Symptoms:

• Unusual running processes/files in the task manager
• Slow internet connection speed, declined bandwidth
• Missing and phony system tray icons and shortcuts
• Trojan-Downloader.WMA.GetCodec.d reinstalls after removal, difficult to remove
• Uknown applications cause general windows instability
• Can alter desktop background wallpaper
• Creates pop-ups even with pop up blocker, can overflow computer with porn pop-ups
• WMA.GetCodec.d can modify browser setting to www.flashcodec.com
• Missing registry keys dlls and system files resulting in "Blue Screen"

Technical description: Trojan-Downloader.WMA.GetCodec.d is a dangerous media codec downloader trojan that infects mp3 and wma files via security loopholes. The infected files will show following notification "Windows Media Player - The file you are attempting to play has an extension that dous not match the file format. Playing the file may result in unexpected behavior.".

Propagation: Trojan-Downloader.WMA.GetCodec.d is generally installed on the system by clicking on fake mediaplayer codec update popups or by downloading infected windows_meda_player_flash_codec_plugin.exe file from www.flashcodec.com hijacker website.

How does anti-virus software work?


An anti-virus software program is a computer program that can be used to scan files to identify and eliminate computer viruses and other malicious software (malware).

Anti-virus software typically uses two different techniques to accomplish this:

Examining files to look for known viruses by means of a virus dictionary
Identifying suspicious behavior from any computer program which might indicate infection
Most commercial anti-virus software uses both of these approaches, with an emphasis on the virus dictionary approach.

Virus dictionary approach:


In the virus dictionary approach, when the anti-virus software examines a file, it refers to a dictionary of known viruses that have been identified by the author of the anti-virus software. If a piece of code in the file matches any virus identified in the dictionary, then the anti-virus software can then either delete the file, quarantine it so that the file is inaccessible to other programs and its virus is unable to spread, or attempt to repair the file by removing the virus itself from the file.

To be successful in the medium and long term, the virus dictionary approach requires periodic online downloads of updated virus dictionary entries. As new viruses are identified "in the wild", civically minded and technically inclined users can send their infected files to the authors of anti-virus software, who then include information about the new viruses in their dictionaries.

Dictionary-based anti-virus software typically examines files when the computer's operating system creates, opens, and closes them; and when the files are e-mailed. In this way, a known virus can be detected immediately upon receipt. The software can also typically be scheduled to examine all files on the user's hard disk on a regular basis.

Although the dictionary approach is considered effective, virus authors have tried to stay a step ahead of such software by writing "polymorphic viruses", which encrypt parts of themselves or otherwise modify themselves as a method of disguise, so as to not match the virus's signature in the dictionary.

Suspicious behavior approach:


The suspicious behavior approach, by contrast, doesn't attempt to identify known viruses, but instead monitors the behavior of all programs. If one program tries to write data to an executable program, for example, this is flagged as suspicious behavior and the user is alerted to this, and asked what to do.

Unlike the dictionary approach, the suspicious behavior approach therefore provides protection against brand-new viruses that do not yet exist in any virus dictionaries. However, it also sounds a large number of false positives, and users probably become desensitized to all the warnings. If the user clicks "Accept" on every such warning, then the anti-virus software is obviously useless to that user. This problem has especially been made worse over the past 7 years, since many more nonmalicious program designs chose to modify other .exes without regards to this false positive issue. Thus, most modern anti virus software uses this technique less and less.

Other ways to detect viruses:


Some antivirus-software will try to emulate the beginning of the code of each new executable that is being executed before transferring control to the executable. If the program seems to be using self-modifying code or otherwise appears as a virus (it immeadeatly tries to find other executables), one could assume that the executable has been infected with a virus. However, this method results in a lot of false positives.

Yet another detection method is using a sandbox. A sandbox emulates the operating system and runs the executable in this simulation. After the program has terminated, the sandbox is analysed for changes which might indicate a virus. Because of performance issues this type of detection is normally only performed during on-demand scans.

Issues of concern:

Macro viruses, arguably the most destructive and widespread computer viruses, could be prevented far more inexpensively and effectively, and without the need of all users to buy anti-virus software, if Microsoft would fix security flaws in Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Office related to the execution of downloaded code and to the ability of document macros to spread and wreak havoc.

User education is as important as anti-virus software; simply training users in safe computing practices, such as not downloading and executing unknown programs from the Internet, would slow the spread of viruses, without the need of anti-virus software.

Computer users should not always run with administrator access to their own machine. If they would simply run in user mode then some types of viruses would not be able to spread.

The dictionary approach to detecting viruses is often insufficient due to the continual creation of new viruses, yet the suspicious behavior approach is ineffective due to the false positive problem; hence, the current understanding of anti-virus software will never conquer computer viruses.

There are various methods of encrypting and packing malicious software which will make even well-known viruses undetectable to anti-virus software. Detecting these "camouflaged" viruses requires a powerful unpacking engine, which can decrypt the files before examining them. Unfortunately, many popular anti-virus programs do not have this and thus are often unable to detect encrypted viruses.

Companies that sell anti-virus software seem to have a financial incentive for viruses to be written and to spread, and for the public to panic over the threat.