Computer Crimes

Computer Crimes

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Viruses, worms and Trojans are forms of software referred to as malware. “Malware”, also known as malicious code, is shorthand for malicious software. A malware or malicious code is a software, or code, that is designed specifically to steal, disrupt, damage or inflict an illegitimate action on hosts, data or networks. Malware cannot damage network equipment and hardware of the systems they infect (Xiao et al., 2011). Different classes of malware have different ways of infecting a computer system and replicating or propagating themselves. Although most people use them interchangeably, viruses, worms and Trojans are different classes of malware. As such, there are subtle differences in the characteristics of each class.

A computer virus refers to a malware that propagates or replicates by inserting a copy of itself into another program, thereby becoming part of that program. A virus can spread if the software or document they are attached to is copied or transferred from one computer to another via file sharing, a disk, infected e-mail attachments, or the network (Newman, 2010). Viruses range in severity, from those that only cause mildly annoying issues to those that damage software or data, and resulting in denial of service conditions. Most viruses are attached to executable files and, unless the user opens or runs the malicious host file, the virus remains in the system without being active. The host file continues to function properly after execution. However, in certain cases the virus is able to overwrite other programs with copies of itself, destroying the host program.

Worms are similar to viruses because they also replicate themselves and may cause similar forms of damage to programs. Because of these acute similarities, worms are often referred to as viruses. However, unlike viruses, worms do exist as single or separate entities and do not need a host program to facilitate their propagation. To facilitate their propagation, worms exploit vulnerabilities of the target system. Further, some worms are designed to use social engineering to trick users into running or executing them, usually by presenting itself as a fancy or joke program. Once a worm has entered a computer via a vulnerability within the system, it takes advantage of features of the target system. The two main systems that are critical to the propagation of the worm are information-transport and file-transport systems. By taking advantage of either systems, the worm can travel through the system unaided.