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<h3>It Is Contagious</h3>
<pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>"Traces of the Stealth_c Virus have been found in memory. Reboot to a</pre><pre>clean system disk before continuing with this installation…" This was the</pre><pre>message staring back at me from one of the computer monitors at my office.</pre><pre>Questions raced through my mind. "Stealth_c?" "What's a system disk?" "How</pre><pre>am I supposed to install anti-virus software if the computer system</pre><pre>already has a virus?" As a discouraging feeling of helplessness came over</pre><pre>me, I thought of all the people who had loaded something from disk on this</pre><pre>box or who had used this box to access the Internet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because there was no</pre><pre>virus protection in the first place, it was going to be very difficult to</pre><pre>determine how many floppy disks and hard drives had been infected. I</pre><pre>wished I had learned about computer viruses a long time ago. What is a</pre><pre>computer virus, anyway? Is it a computer with a cold? A computer "virus"</pre><pre>is called a virus because of three distinct similarities to a biological</pre><pre>virus. They are: ? They must have the ability to make copies of, or</pre><pre>replicate, itself. ? They must have a need for a "host," or functional</pre><pre>program to which it can attach. ? The virus must do some kind of harm to</pre><pre>the computer system or at least cause some kind of unexpected or unwanted</pre><pre>behavior. Sometimes computer viruses just eat up memory or display</pre><pre>annoying messages, but the more dangerous ones can destroy data, give</pre><pre>false information, or completely freeze up a computer. The Stealth_c virus</pre><pre>is a boot sector virus, meaning that it resides in the boot sectors of a</pre><pre>computer disk and loads into memory with the normal boot-up programs. The</pre><pre>"stealth" in the name comes from the capability of this virus to possibly</pre><pre>hide from anti-virus software.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Virtually any media that can carry</pre><pre>computer data can carry a virus. Computer viruses are usually spread by</pre><pre>data diskettes, but can be downloaded from the Internet, private bulletin</pre><pre>boards, or over a local area network. This makes it extremely easy for a</pre><pre>virus to spread once it has infected a system. The aforementioned</pre><pre>Stealth_c virus was transported by the least likely avenue; it was</pre><pre>packaged with commercial software. This is an extremely rare occurrence,</pre><pre>as most software companies go to great lengths to provide "clean"</pre><pre>software. There is a huge commercial interest in keeping computers</pre><pre>virus-free. Companies stand to lose literally thousands of dollars if they</pre><pre>lose computer data to a virus. An immense amount of time can be lost from</pre><pre>more productive endeavors if someone has to check or clean each computer</pre><pre>and floppy diskette of the virus because, no matter what, it will continue</pre><pre>to replicate itself until it uses every bit of memory available. To</pre><pre>service this market, companies sell anti- virus software, which scans</pre><pre>programs, searching for viruses. If one is found, a user can "kill" it by</pre><pre>cleaning the file, delete the file itself, move the file to a disk, or</pre><pre>ignore it. Ignoring a possible virus is an option provided because some of</pre><pre>the newer software utilizes heuristic algorithms to detect possible</pre><pre>viruses. This method of detection is highly effective but, because of the</pre><pre>sensitivity of the programs, false hits can occur. It is also very</pre><pre>important to keep your anti-virus software current. By some estimates,</pre><pre>forty to one hundred new virus programs are written every week by less</pre><pre>than ethical programmers. Most software companies put out new "vaccines"</pre><pre>every month. It is like an ongoing battle, the bad guys write a new virus</pre><pre>or even a new "species" of virus, the good guys get a copy from some poor</pre><pre>soul whose computer has been infected, and they write a vaccine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Some of</pre><pre>the more paranoid, or perhaps astute, have theorized that the companies</pre><pre>writing anti- virus software and the programmers writing viruses are one</pre><pre>in the same. However, the author of a computer virus means nothing to one</pre><pre>whose machine has lost data or has crashed due to infection. Detecting and</pre><pre>deleting the virus becomes the immediate action needed. This is impossible</pre><pre>without anti-virus software, and would be much simpler if the software is</pre><pre>already installed on a system. So, keep your computers "vaccinated,"because, it is contagious. </pre></div>
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