Show I H Computer virus A deadly menace l Warning The following material may maybe be considered technologically infectious r Kyle Hewitt f- f Staff Writer By y the time you read this article computer viruses will have infected more than a ay y million computers computers' causing everything from minor annoyance to the crashing and destruction destruction destruction tion of entire systems Your bank account daily transactions on Wall Street credit card accounts totalling trillions trillions i 7 lions Hons of dollars airline reservations affe affecting ting thousands of passengers daily even ven the programmable codes of nuclear missiles are all aU I potentially at the mercy of criminals secret l' l c agents terrorists or even malicious pranksters who know how to access the systems and inject inject inject in in- their own potentially lethal computer virus Amidst all the destruction and havoc computer computer computer com com- puter viruses are causing ausing it seems unlikely f that these little monsters offer any real realM M benefits to the computer world So the theL L question is II Are re there such things as good j computer viruses Before we answer this puzzling question question question ques ques- tion let us explain exactly what a computer computer com corn puter virus is A computer virus is a program designed by hackers or researchers Its main function is to toI I spread from computer to computer massively replicating itself onto anything it can Any floppy disk hard drive program or even L I L memory space apace l is 15 susceptible U to lu U d a virus At this point the virus is harmless It is only reproducing itself onto nto anything it can can an get a a hold of The virus becomes dangerous when a warhead is placed into a program by its creator A warhead can be defined as an executable command command command com com- mand such as formatting the hard disk or scrambling scrambling scram- scram bling bUng data Some viruses can live inside a computer almost invisibly for several years before delivering their destructive warhead The above message appears on your screen if you are infected by the Brazilian Bug HELLO FRIEND I WE ARE SORRY TO INFORM YOU THAT YOUR SYSTEM is VERY ILL ILLAND 1 AND WILL NOT SURVIVE MUCH LONGER u YOU UNFORTUNATELY THE BRAZILIAN BUG BUG- FOR WHICH THERE IS NO CUREl WE HOPE THAT THIS WILL NOT BE BEAN AN INCONVENIENCE TO YOU LOVE i J THE MAGIK MUSICIANS After delivering the above friendly your computer begins to erase all files files' on your your hard disk or floppies Can you imagine seeing this message knowing that the last two years of your lifes life's work vork is on your hard disk and that your your backup floppies are infected too When the virus displays this message before erasing all your files flics you may think that you have time to figure a way out But as John McAfee its collector notes This virus doesn't surface until after it has done its damage and there is nothing more you can do about it Not all viruses are this malicious malicious' though In fact there have been some computer viruses created that are potentially helpful Instead of using a warhead these viruses have instructions to execute useful commands commands commands com com- mands in the computer One such virus is the Compre Compressor sor Virus created by Dr Fred Cohen an expert in computer systems and security currently teaching at the University University University sity of Cincinnati The Compressor Virus compresses data so that it can be stored in a smaller space asking permission of of- the user each time time before it acts Having this virus active on your computer could prove to be bea a blessing eliminating the tedious task of trying to conserve disk spa space e. e Another example example ex ex- ample of a useful virus is the King liKing Virus written by Andrew Beals on March 16 1988 Much like the white blood cells in our bodies the King Virus travels computer networks searching arching for other viruses When the King Virus finds another virus it jt kills the invader and replaces the dead virus irus Since viruses are basically composed of two distinct parts the delivery system and a payload or warhead we can make viruses play an important role by hy replacing the warhead w with th serviceable functions Alan AlanL L Ludell dell in his book Virus ex explains explains explains plains Evolving our computers to have an n immune system is a definite eme emerging ging p pattern of of the then n near ar future re Our human humann immune system provides an excellent reference mo model del for Jor the design of future computer systems and ha has al already already already al- al ready been embraced by many of today's high- high tech renaissance minds Designing systems to utilize viruses rather than simply battle them them them-is is a paradigm shift in thinking embracing the phenomenon rather than running away from it I 1 predict this to be a viable path for our ture |