Viruses and antiviruses - In the beginning - What they do - Top 10 (Paid for) Antiviruses in UK - Top free antiviruses for PC & Mac - Ad/spyware removal for PC & Mac - Keep yourself safe - Launch your own DDos attack - Sources
In the beginning In November 1988, Robert Tappan Morris, a graduate student at Cornell University, developed the first virus The Morris Worm. He claims he wrote it to gauge the size of the internet. A supposedly unintended consequence of the code, however, caused it to be more damaging: a computer could be infected multiple times and each additional process would slow the machine down, eventually to the point of being unusable. The U.S. Government Accountability Office put the cost of the damage at $100,000 10,000,000. Clifford Stoll, who helped fight the worm, wrote in 1989, "I surveyed the network, and found that two thousand computers were infected within fifteen hours. These machines were dead in the water - useless until disinfected. And removing the virus often took two days." It is usually reported that around 6,000 major UNIX machines were infected by the Morris worm; however, Morris's colleague Paul Graham claimed, "I was there when this statistic was cooked up, and this was the recipe: someone guessed that there were about 60,000 computers attached to the Internet, and that the worm might have infected ten percent of them. Robert Morris was tried and convicted of violating United States Code: Title 18 (18 U.S.C. 1030), the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act in United States v Morris. After appeals he was sentenced to three years probation, 400 hours of community service, a fine of $10,050 plus the costs of his supervision.
What they do worms - a standalone malware computer program that replicates itself in order to spread to other computers. Often, it uses a computer network to spread itself, relying on security failures on the target computer to access it. Unlike a computer virus, it does not need to attach itself to an existing program. trojan horses - a type of malware that is often disguised as legitimate software. Trojans can be employed by cyberthieves and hackers trying to gain access to users' systems. Users are typically tricked by some form of social engineering into loading and executing Trojans onto their systems. Used for ransomeware and camfecting. spyware - a type of malware that is installed on a computer in order to collect the owner's private information. Spyware is often hidden from the user in order to gather information about internet interaction, keystrokes (also known as keylogging), passwords, and other valuable data. adware - used to describe a form of malware (malicious software), usually that which presents unwanted advertisements to the user of a computer. The advertisements produced by adware are sometimes in the form of a pop-up, sometimes an "unclosable" window. scareware - also known as deception software, rogue scanner software or fraudware, scareware may come in the form of pop-ups. These appear as legitimate warnings from antivirus software companies, and claim your computer's files have been infected. They frighten users into paying a fee to buy software that will fix the so-called problem. What they end up downloading, however, is fake antivirus software that is actually malware intended to steal the victim's personal data.itself. DOS - Denial of Service by blocking access to a particular website or DNS server by swamping it with requests - Dyn. DDos - Unlike DoS attack, where only one computer is used, Distributed DoS attacks can use thousands or even hundreds of thousands of computers. These computers are infected by computer Trojan viruses called bots ; and the network is called a botnet. Other viruses are available (rootkits, backdoors, evasion, grayware, etc.)
Top 10 (Paid for) Antiviruses in UK Compatibility across devices - Android, IOS, phones Spyware, Malware and Ransomeware - very few anti-viruses remove all infestations. Email Scans - phishing, viruses, spam and DoS attacks Download Protection - check websites Real-time Scanning - impacts upon performance Privacy Policy - how much user data they collect Customer Support - chat, email and/or phone
Top free antiviruses for PC Microsoft Security Essentials Windows Vista and 7 Windows Defender 8 onwards (genuine Windows only) Avast 2015 most widely used anti-virus software 230 million users Avira Antivirus the techies favourite scores very highly on comparison sites Panda Antivirus also scores well on tests carried out by antivirus evaluation sites AVG Free unobtrusive, doesn't use too many computer resources McAfee VirusScan Plus free for first year to HSBC customers Kaspersky Internet Security Plus - very highly-rated - a must-have if you bank with Barclays (it's free) Rapport also highly rated available free from Natwest and Santander - resource heavy Top free antiviruses for Mac Aren't as many options for OS X as for Windows, though the general consensus is that Mac users are at less of a risk. It's still worth protecting yourself though, as recently there's been an increasing number of viruses for Macs circulating the web. Sophos Antivirus - had fab reviews in techie publications, but has been known to slow down some systems Avast 2015 - given its significant market share, is definitely worth considering. Kaspersky Internet Security 2015 as above
Ad/spyware removal: Free PC downloads Ad-Aware Free Antivirus - Speedy option but few features for free. Ad- Aware's great at detecting and removing malware, and the new version works even faster than previous ones. On the downside, most features are locked in the free version. If you make it your primary tool, you won't be fully protected. Malwarebytes Anti-Malware - While the free version doesn't provide real-time protection or scheduled updates it's still powerful enough to make a big difference. Spybot Search & Destroy - Long history but feedback is mixed. Spybot s been going for a while, and while it has a pretty long list of features, it's always received mixed feedback. It's fairly processor-hungry, so if your computer's already slow it'll be an unwelcome addition. Also available - SUPERAntiSpyware, ComboFix, HijackThis, Hitman Pro, Zemana, Emisisoft, Microsoft Software Removal Tool, Norton Power Eraser. Ad/spyware removal: Free Mac downloads Malwarebytes Anti-Malware - Quick but no real-time protection. One of our top picks for adware/spyware removal on Windows, Also has a free version for Macs. MacScan 2.9.5 by SecureMac - Free, but only for 30 days. SecureMac's MacScan software is built to detect, isolate and remove spyware apps as well as blacklisted cookies saved on your system. It's a 30-day free trial; you'll pay $49.99 (c. 35) to upgrade if you choose to. Reviews are mixed, so if it doesn't work for you, just delete it once the trial is complete.
Keep yourself safe Even if your computer comes off the shelf with a level of protection, threats change daily. So it's imperative you keep your antivirus software up-to-date or else it's useless. Use antivirus Software Protect your identity on-line - credit-card/birth-date/etc Be careful what software you download and from where it s downloaded - Adobe tick boxes Don't use the same login and password for lots of sites. Don't open unknown/unexpected email attachments and links - exe, zip, etc Don't use the admin account for everyday use, or for visitors/usbs/dvds Don t give out information to strangers (telephone or otherwise) Don t download at the behest of Microsoft staff Do use a sandbox (Chrome, Edge, Firefox) Do keep your plugins/extensions up to date - especially Shockwave Flash and Java Do have a backup
Sources Morris Worm - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/morris_worm Viruses - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/malware#anti-virus_and_antimalware_software Top 10 Virus Checkers - https://antivirus-uk.thetop10sites.com/ Best Free - http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/free-anti-virus-software 10 deadliest viruses - http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/famous-malicious-computer-viruses/ Booters-Stressers - https://www.safeskyhacks.com/forums/showthread.php?39-top-10- DDoser-s-(Booters-Stressers) Antivirus article - http://www.howtogeek.com/126911/what-to-do-if-you-get-a-virus-on-yourcomputer/ Ask Leo - https://askleo.com/how-do-i-prevent-my-internet-connected-devices-from-beinghijacked/ Password security test - https://howsecureismypassword.net/ Copy and paste relevant link into address field of browser and click