Computer security
divya@2007
cv.docxCYBER VIRUSES 3
AN INSIGHT INTO A FEW POPULAR CYBER VIRUSES
New England College
ECS 5100 Computer Security
STUXNET
Stuxnet was initially identified by the information security community in 2010. Stuxnet is very much different from other viruses since it just makes little to no harm to the computers outside the uranium enrichment. Development of the same was started in 2005. When it infects a system, it checks whether the computer is connected to a particular model of PLCs (Programmable logic controllers) made by Siemens. It then alters programming of PLCs, spinning the centrifuges too quickly and for too long and make the equipment unable to function properly. As it is untraceable to detect this in the long sight whether it is taking part in the process, PLC outputs show they are working fine which make system unable to detect or diagnose problems at the early stage.
It is rumoured that it was developed by intelligence agencies of United States and Israel. Even though they have not officially acknowledged it, a 2011 video created to celebrate the retirement of Gabi Ashkenazi (Israeli defence head) listed this as one of the successes.
https://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/definition/Stuxnet
CODE RED
The original code red was developed for the purpose of DDoS attack (Distributed Denial of Service) in the White house, In which all computes in the White house tried to connect to web servers in the white house at same time which made it to overload. Code red was popped up in the summer of 200. It contained the text string of “welcome to worm.com Hacked by Chinese” which was displayed on the infected system screens. The unique property of this virus from others is that it can run completely in the memory leaving no files in the hard drive or any other flash storage.
Source: http://malware.wikia.com/wiki/CodeRed
https://computer.howstuffworks.com/worst-computer-viruses4.htm
MELISSA VIRUS
Melissa virus is usually distributed with an email attachment. It is highly potential that when opened it disables most security safeguards in the word 97 and word 2000, and if the user has Microsoft Outlook email program then it would resend the viruses to the first 50 people in address book which make the servers down due to the ripple of email distribution become higher. Melissa Virus got its name from the developer David Smith, for a Miami stripper.
The United States government was very much interested in Smith’s work. Many private sector companies and Multinational companies including Microsoft and Intel shut down their email services until the viruses were captured.
Source: https://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/definition/Melissa-virus
https://computer.howstuffworks.com/worst-computer-viruses1.htm
SASSER WORM
Sasser worm was first founded by a 17-year-old German computer science student called Sven Jaschan. It gained firstly its attention when it exploited a buffer overrun in the process named as local security authority subsystem service which shortly known as LSASS which enforces security policies on the system. It had a high spreading rate since it can spread very fast.
It mainly targeted Microsoft operating systems like windows XP and windows 2000. It transmits the files by exploiting vulnerable network port without even having user interference. It doesn’t spread through email but rather once a system is infected it looked for other vulnerable systems. It could scan IP addresses to check vulnerable victims. It restarts the computer automatically when it attempts to exploit already mentioned vulnerability. If a system has Windows XP or Windows 2000 it is highly recommended downloading the security patch for LSASS vulnerability from the Microsoft website. It is also known as W32/Sasser.worm and W32.Sasser.worm. The virus installs an FTP server on port 5554 so that it can be downloaded by other infected computers.
Source: https://www.techopedia.com/definition/27296/sasser-worm
https://computer.howstuffworks.com/worst-computer-viruses8.htm
ZEUS VIRUS
Zeus viruses are designed to attack Microsoft Windows OS based computers and are usually used to steal financial data. It was first detected in 2007 which also known as Zbot. It can do a lot of bad things when it takes action on an infected computer. Mostly, there are 2 major pieces of functionality; one of them is that it creates a botnet which is corrupted network of machines like in the DDoS attack. It controls the server and allows the malware owner to collect massive amount of information.
It was also widely used for stealing financial credentials from the system whichever it infects. It is done through website monitoring and key logging. The virus identifies the user in the banking website and it records all the form data from typing. Some versions of this virus can also enter and collect the data from Symbian and Android mobile devices too. This makes it one of the most underrated viruses in the world. It usually infects the computer by a spam message through email and drive by downloads.
Source: https://usa.kaspersky.com/resource-center/threats/zeus-virus
