International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, Volume 7, Issue 12, December-2016 44

ISSN 2229-5518

Introduction & History of Computer Viruses

Shivali Bahukhandi, Sandeep Singh Rana

Abstract— In recent years the detection of computer viruses has become common place. It appears that for the most part these viruses have
been ‘benign’ or only mildly destructive. However, whether or not computer viruses have the potential to cause major and prolonged disrup-
tions of computing environments is an open question. In the below mentioned paper i have given the introduction about the topic, definition,
common viruses available and how to protect our system from viruses.

Index Terms— computer security, virus, computer virus, worms, computer infection

——————————  ——————————

1 INTRODUCTION

I n the mid 80’s ,the amjad brothers of Pakistan ran a com-

puter store, they wrote the first computer virus in the world,
a boot sector virus that was called “Brain”, from this discov-
3 CATEGORIES OF COMPUTER VIRUSES
There are following basic categories of viruses-

ery the revolution came to the computer industry, in recent 3.1 Macro Viruses
decades the term of computer viruses came into boom, even
those who are not familiar with the term of computer viruses These viruses infects all the files that contain macros
become familiar with the term by seeing it in the Hollywood i.e.doc,pps,xls and mdb, they affect the macros ,templates and
movies with the latest technology. also the documents that are present in the files

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This paper purposes to depict the current situation of com-
puter viruses and the latest trend and the damage caused to Examples are:
the system by the viruses.
• Relax
2 DEFINITION OF COMPUTER VIRUSES • bablas
A computer virus is a program file that is capable enough to • Melissa.A
make its own code without the knowledge of the user by link- • 097M/Y2K
ing the file to the document. When the file or document that
run destroys others files also and spread to the computer 3.2 Memory Resident Viruses
slowly and steadily. They attack inside the computer memory, it gets activated
Computer viruses are just the same as the viruses or the dis- when the operating is running and infects all other files, they
eases that attacks the human body, they also directly or indi- are hidden in RAM.
rectly destroys our body the same case is that with the com-
puter viruses. Example are:
Execution of host program file results in execution of viruses.
Needs human action to execute.
• CMJ
The structure of Computer Virus can be divided into four
phases- • meve
1. Mark • randex
2. Infection Mechanism • mrklunky
3. Trigger
4. Payload 3.3 Overwrite Viruses
These viruses delete the efficient information available in a
file,at the end it leaves the file fully or half useless,it replaces
the content but do not change the size of the file

——————————————
Examples are:
• Shivali Bahukhandi is currently pursuing bachelor degree program in
Computer Science & Engineering from Shivalik College of Enigeering, De-
hradun (Affiliated to Uttarakhand Technical University), Uttarakhand, • Trj.Reboot
India.
• Sandeep Singh Rana is currently working as an Assistant Professor in the
• way
Department of Computer Science & Engineering of Shivalik College of En- • trivial.88.D
gineering, Dehradun, Uttarakhand.

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International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, Volume 7, Issue 12, December-2016 45
ISSN 2229-5518
3.4 Direct Action Viruses Worm Viruses Include:
These types of virus duplicates and takes action when they are • lovgate.F
executed, they infect the files in the directory or the folder in it • sobig.D
. AUTOEXEC.BAT, they are found in the root directory. • trile. C
• PSWBugbear.B
• Mapson

3.9 Trojans
Example : Vienna virus
Trojans can un approved tracing of important login details of
users online..Email Virus. This is a virus spread through an
email.This virus hide in an email and when the receiver rece-
ives the mail it is spread widely
3.5 Directory Virus
Other name for this type of virus is cluster virus,they infect the
directory of computer it does this by changing the path of file
location,located in the disk but after affecting it affects the en- 3.9 Browser Hijacker
tire directory. It can be spread while downloading; it affects the browsers
functioning of basically redirection of the user to certain sites.
Example is: dir-2 virus Example is:
the cool web search
Boot Infectors

It include the root sector and the master boot record, they in-
3.6 Web Scripting Virus fect the hard disk or the floppy.

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Mostly the web pages include complex codes with the purpose
4 NAMES OF VIRUSES
to create an interactive and interesting content, these codes are
There are a number of popular viruses-
used to create unwanted actions, they comes from infected
WebPages. 4.1 ILOVEYOU
The ILOVEYOU virus is considered one of the most danger-
Example is: JS.Fortnight – a virus that spreads via malicious ous computer virus ever created. The virus was created by two
emails. Filipino programmers, Reonel Ramones and Onel de Guzman.
It made use of social engineering to get users to click on the
attachment; the attachment was basically a txt file This led to
the execution of the E-Commerce Law.
3.7 FAT Viruses
4.2 Code Red
They attack the file allocation table (FAT) which is the part to Code Red was discovered in 2001 by two eEye Digital Security
store every information. employee, it set it goal on computers with Microsoft IIS web
server.
Examples is: the link virus
4.3 Sasser
Polymorphic Virus
It is basically a windows virus created by Sven Jaschan, who
also created the Netsky worm; it took advantage of buffer
They do their own encrypting and programming in different
overflow weakness in local Security authority service
style when they infect the computer, they use different encryp-
tion and algorithms, it makes it difficult for the antivirus to 4.4 Zeus
trace it.
It is a Trojan horse made to affect Windows computer to per-
form various criminal tasks, common task in this is the main
Examples are: in the middle browser key logging and form grabbing

• Marburg
• tuareg
• Satan bug
• elkern

3.8 Worm
This program has the property of self replication causing neg-
ative effects on the computer.
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International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, Volume 7, Issue 12, December-2016 46
ISSN 2229-5518
5 COMMON VIRUSES OF THE YEAR

Year of
6 LIFE CYCLE OF COMPUTER VIRUS
S Name of the
discov- Infection caused Stage I - Creation – The Computer viruses are created by
N virus
ery peoples who wish to cause damage to computers.
It spread by e-mail, arriving Stage II -Replication - Computer Viruses duplicates itself and
with the subject line "ILO- transfers from one pc to another pc
5 may
1 iloveyou VEYOU" and an attach- Stage III -Activation -The damage causing viruses activates
2000
ment, "LOVE-LETTER- itself when the conditions are successfully met for it.
FOR-YOU.txt.vbs". Stage IV -Discovery - It takes place once a year at least when
It allows the worm to ex- the virus have become a threat
July ecute arbitrary code and the Stages V -Assimilation - At this point of time the antivirus de-
2 Code red
15,2001 machine with worm velopers detect the remedy to cure the virus, this may take
time period of one to 6 months also
The virus scans different Stage VI -Eradication - If any user install proper software to
April ranges of IP address and delete the viruses it can be successfully deleted, but the fact is
3 Sasser
12,2004 connects victims computer that not any virus is deleted completely but its effect is re-
primarily through TCP duced.
July It is spread mainly through
4 Zeus drive by downloads
2007
17 Feb- It was the virus that at-
5 mocmex ruary tacked the photo frame
2008

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Daprosy 15 july It stealed online game
6 2009 passwords.
worm
Janu- It was capacable of sending
Waledac
7 ary,2010 about 1.5 million spam mes-
botnet
sage
1 sep- Its nature was same as that
8 duqu temb- of the malware.
er,2011
16 It is designed to target com-
aug,201 puters running on Microsoft
9 shamoon
2 windows in the energy sec-
tor Fig.2. Life Cycle of Computer Virus
Sep- It encryptes the files on a
10 Cryptolocker tember user’s hard disk
2013
No- Once downloaded,regin
vember quietly downloaded exten- 7 HOW TO PROTECT OUR SYSTEM FROM COMPUTER
11 Regin
2014 sion of itself, makes difficult VIRUS?
to be detected
1. Keep your windows defender activated as it could
12 ramsowore 2016 Used for defence purposes.
protect the system from any malicious activity occur-
ring
2. use antimalware app and also keep it up-
dated(basically antimalware app check for viruses,
spyware and any other threatening events occurring
within the system which could interrupt its
processing)
3. use of pop-up blocker is useful
4. we should pay attention to all the notification.
5. if we are using Internet Explorer we should ensure
that Smart screen is turned on
6. windows should be updated and it should be the ge-
nuine windows
7. make sure that User account is always turned on

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International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, Volume 7, Issue 12, December-2016 47
ISSN 2229-5518
8 PROBLEMS OF COMPUTER VIRUS fenses, A Short Course On Computer Viruses, ASP Press, 1990,
ISBN 1-878109-01-4.
There are many problems associated with computer viruses
some are listed below
1. Computer speed or performance, decreases
2. Computer boots and reboots again and again
3. loosing of data from drives and disks
4. Cause erratic screen behavior.
5. Weird messages comes on screen
6. Browser home page also changes itself.
7. Application softwares changes

9 CONCLUSION
Virus basically destroys our system due to which our efficient
information is also lost and multiple copies of the same data is
stored due to which more pressure is put on the computer, so
we should always keep our firewall and antivirus updated.

10 REFERENCE
[1] A System to Support the Analysis of Antivirus Products’ Virus
Detection Capabilities, Marko Helenius, 2002.

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[2] http://www.faqs.org/faqs/computer-virus/
[3] http://www.wildlist.org/WildList/
[4] ASP Press Pittsburg 1990 "A Short Course on Computer Virus-
es"; Fred Cohen; 1992 all.net/books/ir/csl02-92.html Cohen, Fred;
Establishing a Computer Security Incident Response Capability
[5] usvms.gpo.gov/findfact.html,Findings of Fact; United States
District Court For The District of Columbia, 1999.
[6] www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/mailissa.html Symantec
AntiVirus Research Center, 1999.,
[7] http://www.microsoft.com/com/tech/com.asp
[8] ICSA 1998 Computer Virus Prevalence Survey, 1998.
[9] http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/enus
/netdir/ldap/lightweight_directory_access_protocol_ldap_api.as
p
[10] C. Nachenberg, ‘Computer Parasitology’, Proceedings of The
Ninth International Virus Bulletin Conference, 1999. p. 7.
[11] Virus and Malicious Code Protection for Wireless Devices,
Trend Micro, February 2001.
[12] Possible Virus Attacks Against Integrity Programs And How To
Prevent Them; Vesselin Bontchev, Virus Test Center, University
of Hamburg. Feb. 12, 2001; NIPC CyberNotes Issue #2001-03;.
[13] ICSA 2001 Virus Prevalence Survey. pages 822 – 832, NCSA ibid
[14] Fred Cohen, Computer Viruses - Theory and Experiments,
Computer Security: A Global Challenge, Elsevier Science Pub-
lishers B. V. (North-Holland), 1984, pp. 143-158.
[15] Fred Cohen, Computer Viruses - Theory and Experiments,
Computer Security: A Global Challenge, Elsevier Science Pub-
lishers B. V. (North-Holland), 1984, pp. 143-158.
[16] Yisrael Radai, Checksumming Techniques for Anti-Viral Pur-
poses, Proc. 1st Int. Virus Bulletin Conf., September 1991, pp.
39-68. Computer viruses: The threat today and the expected fu-
ture Xin Li 67
[17] Fred Cohen, A Cost Analysis Of Virus Defenses, A Short Course
On Computer Viruses, ASP Press, 1990, ISBN 1-878109-01-4, pp.
155-160. pp. 155-160, Fred Cohen, A Cost Analysis Of Virus De-

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