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Types of Viruses
- 2009-05-04
- Categorized in: VTutor Virus Types
| Viruses come in many types; written using many different infection strategies. |
Computer viruses come in a variety of types. Breaking them into categories is not easy as many viruses have multiple characteristics and so would fall into multiple categories. We're going to describe two different types of category systems: what they infect and how they infect. Because they are so common, we're also going to include a category specific to worms.
What They Infect
Viruses can infect a number of different portions of the computer's operating and file system. These include:
- System Sectors
- Files
- Macros
- Companion Files
- Directories (Cluster) Viruses
- Batch Files
- Source Code
- Visual Basic Files
- Screensavers
- Vulnerabilities
How They Infect
Viruses are sometimes also categorized by how they infect. These categorizations often overlap the categories above and may even be included in the description (e.g., polymorphic file virus). These categories include:
- Polymorphic Viruses
- Stealth Viruses and Rootkits
- Fast and Slow Infectors
- Sparse Infectors
- Armored Viruses
- Multipartite Viruses
- Spacefiller (Cavity) Viruses
- Tunneling Viruses
- Camouflage Viruses
- Metamorphic Viruses
- NTFS ADS Viruses
- Buffer Overflow
- Botnet
- Social Engineering
- Peer-to-Peer Network
- Search Poisoning
- Trusted Software or Site
Blended Threats
And, as you might expect, not all malware operates according to a single rule. Combinations like a Trojan with embedded virus and many other combinations exist. Plus, a single virus may have multiple attack vectors. The categories above are more for understanding a technique than to say these are the single techniques used or even the only techniques used.
Now either click on the virus topic you are interested in or read about each in sequence...
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| Virus Droppers | What Viruses Infect |
so I can't give the number please there are many upcomming
AND we read it easily
With a Windows machine you'd need to make absolutely certain you keep up with all operating system and program security updates (but with zero-day attacks that's not a certainty). You'd want to not click on any links in any E-mails, even if you know the sender (malware can easily forge an E-mail header to look genuine). You'd want to run only programs you trust and obtained legally (e.g., NO copied software and only software from known-good vendors). And, limit your time on the Internet to only what's absolutely necessary. Keep the computer disconnected from the net if not actually using the net.
An easier method would also be to set up a virtual machine and install your known-good operating system and programs into the virtual machine. Then save that system state so you have an always-good, known configuration. Now, do your work in that virtual machine and when done and when you've moved any created data files out of the virtual machine to a safe place you can close down the virtual machine and anything and everything on it would disappear. The next day you start over again with a new copy of the original virtual machine. If you do this then you can be a bit more bold in what you do because you know that whatever got onto your computer will be gone when you close the virtual machine. Again, not perfect but not bad as an approach.
Of course, you could also just use a low-infection operating system and do everything on a Linux box. Very few active Linux beasts out there as most malware is directed at Windows machines.