What is a worm virus and how are they worse than your garden variety worm?
Worms are a major computer security threat. One worm virus has infected 6% of the World's computers. Our antivirus specialist went to the field to find out more about computer worms and worm removal.
Many of us breed worms in our great Australian quarter acre block. It’s not too hard. Did you know that most of us can also create a computer worm? Its easy to do and there is, as you can imagine, plenty of instructions on the internet. Worm removal is a lot harder though.
At last count there were over 1,000 computer worms infecting computers in Australia. While a few die off there are many more replacing them each month. They can be as big to download as a music track or as small as a Word document. In fact, worms often infect both of these and you may not even notice because worms are not usually user-initiated.
Worms bounce around networked computers (particularly in the workplace and on peer to peer networks) for years. As most most people do not run anti virus software such as Norton Antivirus 2009, Norton 360 or Norton Internet Security, they continue to spread.
For a worm to access your computer it exposes the security vulnerabilities of your operating system and security holes in your network. Once exposed, these vulnerabilities require security patches. Windows is famously unable to resist the onslaught of new worms and instead rely on patches for users to download. Problem is that it is difficult to cut through the noise on onscreen messages that your computer gives you.
Once on your computer, a worm might be coded to go through your address book and email everyone or travel around the office via the network. A bigger more malicious virus might choose to cripple your operating system if you try and download the attachment. Or it might do it really slowly over a few months.
You may have heard of a recent worm virus called Conficker. Conficker first came on the scene in 2008 and Microsoft issued a patch to protect its users (and a $250,000 reward for information leading to an arrest), but an estimated 80% of people didn't download the patch.
This is because users do not actively run their antivirus software so virus threats go unnoticed. Improvements in Norton Antivirus 2009 have gone a long way to improving the rate of worm removal and Norton Antivirus 2009 can remove and protect you from the virus in a milisecond, yet 6% of the world's computers remain infected by Conficker.
Most perniciously, worms are also designed as “botnets”. These are remote controlled, self-updating viruses that compromise your computer, add it to a network and, for instance, send spam that you can’t trace. You might have heard about organised crime or the Russian mafia conducting distributed denial of service attacks? These attacks utilise networks of thousands of computers to invisibly visit websites and take down their servers as the servers can’t take the load. Then the site owners get asked for money to turn the sites back on.
Other worms collect identities and personal information and data, and there is a thriving market online for that. Or they may choose to annoy you, for instance by killing your anti virus downloads and your web browser. Particularly galling is when they choose to activate a virus on your birthday.
Worm writers continually shift the goalposts from the law enforcers. It used to be easier to find who wrote the code and the stupid ones got caught. Nowadays, the coders actually rent time on botnets like the ones above so that there is no digital fingerprint back to the author. This is the preferred way to writing the code in shared computer terminals like public libraries and internet cafes. Removal of the worm conficker has been difficult because it has virus elements built in.
The amazing thing about worms is how quickly they can be shut down. Often within 30 minutes the antivirus software companies have detected them through their own network of deliberately unprotected computers and begun issuing warnings or automatically started updating their software on their client’s machines.
Unfortunately most people do not update their virus protection software so a detected virus continues to spread and infect people’s PCs. As they gather momentum, computer worms evolve. Hackers share the code with trusted sources, who refine it and relaunch it. Sometimes the code can change its nasty objective by continually rewriting its own code as it spreads. This is why it is common to see many variations within a worm family, e.g. there is 9 variations of the unpleasant netsky worm.
How do you protect yourself from computer worms?
Having up to date software is critical. As it is the gold standard in the virus protection field, most computers come with Norton Antivirus installed. Unfortunately many people do not update to the latest version.
Many of us breed worms in our great Australian quarter acre block. It’s not too hard. Did you know that most of us can also create a computer worm? Its easy to do and there is, as you can imagine, plenty of instructions on the internet. Worm removal is a lot harder though.
At last count there were over 1,000 computer worms infecting computers in Australia. While a few die off there are many more replacing them each month. They can be as big to download as a music track or as small as a Word document. In fact, worms often infect both of these and you may not even notice because worms are not usually user-initiated.
Worms bounce around networked computers (particularly in the workplace and on peer to peer networks) for years. As most most people do not run anti virus software such as Norton Antivirus 2009, Norton 360 or Norton Internet Security, they continue to spread.
For a worm to access your computer it exposes the security vulnerabilities of your operating system and security holes in your network. Once exposed, these vulnerabilities require security patches. Windows is famously unable to resist the onslaught of new worms and instead rely on patches for users to download. Problem is that it is difficult to cut through the noise on onscreen messages that your computer gives you.
Once on your computer, a worm might be coded to go through your address book and email everyone or travel around the office via the network. A bigger more malicious virus might choose to cripple your operating system if you try and download the attachment. Or it might do it really slowly over a few months.
You may have heard of a recent worm virus called Conficker. Conficker first came on the scene in 2008 and Microsoft issued a patch to protect its users (and a $250,000 reward for information leading to an arrest), but an estimated 80% of people didn't download the patch.
This is because users do not actively run their antivirus software so virus threats go unnoticed. Improvements in Norton Antivirus 2009 have gone a long way to improving the rate of worm removal and Norton Antivirus 2009 can remove and protect you from the virus in a milisecond, yet 6% of the world's computers remain infected by Conficker.
Most perniciously, worms are also designed as “botnets”. These are remote controlled, self-updating viruses that compromise your computer, add it to a network and, for instance, send spam that you can’t trace. You might have heard about organised crime or the Russian mafia conducting distributed denial of service attacks? These attacks utilise networks of thousands of computers to invisibly visit websites and take down their servers as the servers can’t take the load. Then the site owners get asked for money to turn the sites back on.
Other worms collect identities and personal information and data, and there is a thriving market online for that. Or they may choose to annoy you, for instance by killing your anti virus downloads and your web browser. Particularly galling is when they choose to activate a virus on your birthday.
Worm writers continually shift the goalposts from the law enforcers. It used to be easier to find who wrote the code and the stupid ones got caught. Nowadays, the coders actually rent time on botnets like the ones above so that there is no digital fingerprint back to the author. This is the preferred way to writing the code in shared computer terminals like public libraries and internet cafes. Removal of the worm conficker has been difficult because it has virus elements built in.
The amazing thing about worms is how quickly they can be shut down. Often within 30 minutes the antivirus software companies have detected them through their own network of deliberately unprotected computers and begun issuing warnings or automatically started updating their software on their client’s machines.
Unfortunately most people do not update their virus protection software so a detected virus continues to spread and infect people’s PCs. As they gather momentum, computer worms evolve. Hackers share the code with trusted sources, who refine it and relaunch it. Sometimes the code can change its nasty objective by continually rewriting its own code as it spreads. This is why it is common to see many variations within a worm family, e.g. there is 9 variations of the unpleasant netsky worm.
How do you protect yourself from computer worms?
Having up to date software is critical. As it is the gold standard in the virus protection field, most computers come with Norton Antivirus installed. Unfortunately many people do not update to the latest version.
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Norton Antivirus 2009 |
Norton Internet Security 2009 |
Norton 360 |