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Along with viruses, there are three other types of damaging programs which are the bane of all computer users worldwide: Trojans, worms and backdoors. Although they have similar effects to viruses, these programs have clearly distinguishing characteristics.
Virus
A virus is a program that can enter a computer in many different ways and can cause effects ranging from the simply annoying to the highly destructive. Viruses can enter computers through e-mail, the Internet, different types of disks etc, and they have the following characteristics:
- They have the ability to reproduce infecting other files and programs.
- When they are run, they are able to carry out a range of annoying or damaging actions in your computer.
Computer viruses are called viruses due to their similarities with biological viruses.
In the same way that biological viruses enter the body and infect cells, computer viruses get into computers and infect files. Both types of virus can reproduce themselves and spread, passing the infection from one infected system to another. Also, just as a biological virus is a micro-organism, computer viruses are micro-programs.
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Worms
A worm is a program very similar to a virus. It has the ability to self-replicate, and can lead to negative effects on your system. However, worms do not need to infect other files in order to reproduce.
Worms, unlike viruses, simply replicate themselves damaging files, but can reproduce rapidly, saturating a network and causing it to collapse. Normally sent via e-mail, some of the most notorious include: I Love You, Navidad, Pretty Park, Happy99, ExploreZip.
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Trojans
Another unsavory breed of virus are Trojans or Trojan horses, which unlike viruses do not reproduce by infecting other files nor do they self-replicate like worms.
Trojans work in a similar way to their mythological namesake, the famous wooden horse in which Greek soldiers hid so that they could enter the city of Troy undetected. They appear to be harmless programs that enter a computer through any channel. When that program is executed (they have names or characteristics which trick the user into doing so), they install other programs on the computer that can be harmful.
A Trojan may not activate its effects at first, but when they do, they can wreak havoc on your system. They have the capacity to delete files, destroy information on your hard drive and open up a backdoor to your security system. This gives them complete access to your system allowing an outside user to copy and resend confidential information.
Some examples of Trojans are Backdoor, Donald Dick, Crack2000, Extacis, KillCMOS and Netbus.
For more information, go to Types of Viruses.
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Backdoors
A backdoor is a program that can get into computers without user realizing, passing itself off as a harmless program. Once it has been run, it opens a backdoor through which it can control the affected computer. This allows a malicious user to carry out actions on the affected computer that can compromise user confidentiality or impede the operations carried out.
The actions that backdoor allow malicious users to carry out can be extremely damaging. They could allow them to delete files or destroy all the information on the hard disk, capture confidential data and send it out to an external address or open communications ports, allowing remote control of the computer.
Some examples of backdoor are: Orifice2K.sfx, Bionet.318, Antilam y Subseven.213.
For more information, go to Types of viruses.
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