Virus, Worms and Hackers
Computer viruses were first widely seen in the late 1980s. They were caused due to several reasons. The first factor was rapid growth of personal computers. Before this decade personal computers were not seen in many houses. They only computers used were expert computers which were locked in laboratories around the world. During the 1980’s Computers started to sell to several smaller business’s and homes after the release of the IBM PC in 1982 [1]. After its launch, personal computers slowly started spreading to businesses, homes and universities around the world.
The second reason was bulletin boards where users could dial up a bulletin board with a modem and download different programs [2]. The most popular programs were games. Users also downloaded simple word processors and spreadsheets. Bulletin boards led to the precursor of the virus which is know today as the Trojan horse. Trojan horse is a program which can trick the user in to downloading it. This can be done very easily changing the name of the file. When a Trojan program is downloaded on a local computer it can do a lot of harm to it. It can potentially erase all the contents of the hard disk on the computer. Trojan horses hit a small number of people because they are discovered easily. Either the bulletin board would erase the file from the system or the people would send out messages to warn one another. The third reason was growth of floppy disks. Many programs could fit into a single floppy disk. Most computers did have hard disks so computers would just load everything off the floppy when switched on including the operating system.
Computer viruses can be very mysterious and grab our attention. Viruses can show us how vulnerable we are to attacks. A well engineered virus can have a very harmful effect on the internet. An example of this is the worms we have seen in the last few years. MyDoom worm which infected a quarter million computers in a single shook the whole internet community. In March 1999 the Mellisa virus was so powerful, it forced many large companies including Microsoft to completely turn off their email systems until the virus could be contained. The ILOVEYOU worm in 2000 had a similar effect. The most astonishing thing is that these worms were very simple in their implementation. Worms usually exploit some sort of security hole in a piece of software or operating system.
If ionizing radiation passes through a cell in the body, it can lead to mutations (changes) in the cell’s DNA, the part of the cell that contains its genes (blueprints). Sometimes this causes the cell to die, but sometimes it can lead to cancer later on. The amount of damage caused in the cell is related to the dose of radiation it receives. The damage takes place in only a fraction of a second, but other changes such as the beginning of cancer may take years to
Radiation is the emission of electromagnetic energy that is given off in the form of high speed particles that cause ionization. During ionization radiation hits and knocks electrons from an atom creating charged ions. Due to the electron being stripped away from the atom this break the chemical bond. Living tissue within the human body is damaged and attempts to repair it but sometimes the damage is beyond repair.
What is Radiation? Radiation is a A form of energy carried by waves or a stream of particles. Radiation is a fragment that is capable of ionizing atoms or molecules isolating electrons from them due to its sufficiently possessed energy when it is passed through them. Radiations include alpha, beta and gamma rays. They can cause severe damage when absorbed by living tissue, and are therefore a health hazard they can effect the repairing ability of living cells. Ionizing radiation consists of subatomic particles or electromagnetic waves that are energetic enough to detach
At the Aim Higher College there have been recently discovered malware on the campus systems that are due to many recent attacks. I used an Anti-virus protection software called AVG on the computer systems on campus and ran a whole computer scan. The results came back very quick of numbers of malware being high and medium priorities that these should not be taken lightly. Furthermore, the scan found many viruses, Trojans, and malicious software and applications.
DNA damage is a proven biomarker of radiation effects. Cytogenetic techniques commonly employed for detecting DNA strand breakages include chromosome aberrations, micronucleus and comet assay under field and laboratory circumstances. In recent times, flow cytometry (FCM) has been widely used to quantify DNA damage since it offers the analysis of a high number of nuclei in a few minutes providing statistically reliable results in a short period of time. Ideally, all cells within an organism contain the same amount of DNA. DNA damage results from the breakage and rearrangement of chromosomes and from interference with the normal segregation of chromosome during cell division. Double strand breaks are the most important DNA lesions caused by ionizing radiation and other damages from exposure to genotoxic agents resulting in cells with an abnormally high or low DNA content. This variability can be detected as an increased coefficient of variation (CV) of cells in G0/G1 phase as measured by flow cytometry.
I decided to read the book by David Harley called Viruses Revealed. This book goes into great detail about the different kinds of viruses and virus mechanisms, the solutions to these viruses, studies on different cases of viruses and then the social aspects of viruses. In the first part of the book, Harley talks about the problems with viruses. A virus is a program that infects other programs to modify them. “Infecting means that a virus will insert itself into the chain of command” (Harley). The virus structure was defined into three different parts: Infection, Payload, and Trigger. The infection is defined as the way or ways in which the virus spreads. The payload is defined as what the virus does besides duplicating itself. Trigger is defined as the procedure that decides whether or not the payload is necessary. Harley also talks about the difference between damage versus infection. The major difference between the two is that many users have infected documents or applications on their computer. Whether or not those applications are run is the difference between the two. In part one Harley also converses about Trojan Horses. Trojan horses are normally known as a virus, but he shoots that down. Harley says that Trojan Horses are normally not viruses, but just a worm that goes from computer to computer. After talking about different kinds of viruses and worms, he goes into Anti-Virus softwares. There are two different kinds of anti-viruses. One being virus-specific. Virus-specific means that every time a virus is found on your computer, it is identified but not detected. Generic scanners do the opposite. Generic scanners detect viruses but do not identify them.
Gamma radiation therapy kills cancer cells by damaging their individual DNA. Therapy can either damage DNA directly or create charged particles (free radicals) within the cells that can in turn damage the DNA. Damaged cancer cells either stop dividing or die. They are then broken down and eliminated by natural processes inside of the body. However radiation therapy can also damage normal cells. The amount of radiation that normal tissue can safely receive is known for all parts of the body. Doctors use this information to help them decide where to aim radiation during treatment.
Most viruses are created out of curiosity. There are those out there who create them out of malice, but far more of the creators are just meeting a challenge, to see if they can do it or not. A common type of virus would be a Trojan Horse, a destructive program disguised as a game, a utility, or an application. When run a Trojan Horse does something harmful to the computer system, while appearing to do something useful. A worm is also a popular type of virus. A worm is a program that spreads itself across computers, usually by spawning copies of itself in each computer’s memory. A worm might duplicate itself in one computers memory so often that it causes the computer to crash. A worm is introduced secretly into a host system either for fun, or with the intent to damage or destroy information. Now I will explain some of the more major viruses, and how they function.
The history of cybercrime goes back to 1971 and the first computer virus called the Creeper which was created by Bob H. Thomas, who was a BBN engineer (Dalakov, Meltzer, and Phillips). BBN which stands for Bolt, Beranek and Newman, is now Raytheon BBN Technologies (“About”, Dalakov). A computer virus is a program that is created to cause damage to a computer or perform other malicious acts (204). The Creeper virus was designed to infect the ARPANET network. The ARPANET, which stands for Advance Research Projects Agency was set up by the U.S. Government as an agency in 1969 to provide a network of computers that would connect various academic and research organizations; it was the predecessor of the Internet (“Internet”, Morley, and Parker).
Imagine starting up your computer only to see the image on the screen melt while eerie music plays. The hard drive crunches away. What is it doing in there? Before you turn off the machine, most of your files have been deleted. Your computer is the victim of a computer virus. But where did the virus come from? It may have been that game you borrowed or, more likely, it came from an electronic document.
ways, perhaps the best thing to do is more a form of damage control rather than
Radiation is a frightening concept. It has lead to many an untimely death in the past 70 years, ranging from victims of atomic bombs in Japan to physiologists experimenting without taking proper safety precautions. The most dangerous form of radiation can be devastating to the body, weakening or eliminating the immune system and tearing the very DNA in one’s cells apart. This form is referred to as ionizing radiation, and even the least harmful potencies - such as x-rays and UV light - can increase the risk of cancer and other health problems. It has enough energy to knock electrons out of atoms in a process called ionization.
In this globalized arena, with the proliferating computer users as well as computer networks, risks associated like Malware attacks are also multiplying. As the proverb
Viruses are programs that attach themselves to legitimate programs with malicious intent. It is designed to spread from one host to another. Once a virus has successfully attacked, the program will remain dormant until the device has to execute its code. Once infected the computer virus can infect other devices on the same network and cause some major damage. These damages include corrupting files and even taking over the
“A digital world we became”. These days individuals turned to use computer systems in everything in their lives. They even use them in manufacturer instead of employees. I did not say that technological innovation is not essential for us but sometimes the technological innovation disregards our role in life. Technological innovation is very essential to any lifestyle to flourish. Technology contains cell mobile phones, laptops, machines, Ipads and many other factors. Not also they include all the excellent stuff but any great factor comes out with a drawback. Technological innovation has some drawbacks, and the most essential one of them that we will mainly talk about is the malware.