On Being Human

In the olden days, before the Internet, malware migrated from PC to PC mostly through floppy disks. During the 1990s, infections spread through e-mail attachments. Today, viruses find their targets through something called human engineering.

While there are still viruses that can infect your computer without your knowing, most viruses walk into a PC because the person using the computer invites them in. That’s how human engineering works: Basically, you’re fooled into doing something you otherwise would be smart enough not to do.

Unlike years back, today it’s common knowledge that you do not open an unknown file attachment or download a program from a questionable web site. To fight the fact that computer users were getting smarter, the bad guys have to catch folks unaware. So they opened the psychology books on human behavior.

For example, say you get an e-mail message attachment, but the message says something like, “This is incredibly cute; be sure you disable your anti-virus software to view the video.” I’d say, “Yeah, right,” and my example isn’t overly clever, but often that’s all it takes to fool an otherwise smart computer user into doing something dumb.

The key to survival in the hostile digital age is to be ever vigilant against impending peril. It also helps to have an ace in the hole, and that ace for you can a service like PC Live.

Icky Spyware

Spyware is the newest form of malware to disappoint computer users around the world. It’s also one of the things you need to be conscious of when it comes to keeping your computer in top shape.
Its origins seem innocent: Spyware was often voluntarily downloaded and installed by computer users. The purpose was to monitor your activities on the Internet and gear specific advertising to you based on things you find interesting. Often the Spyware was a game, screen saver, or some other innocent-seeming program.

The first problem with Spyware was that it proved next-to-impossible to remove. The second problem, one most common today, is that Spyware accumulates like dust bunnies under the couch. The accumulated affect is that your computer’s performance slows to a crawl.

An irritating issue with Spyware is that the tools most people use to remove viruses do not detect nor address the issues created by Spyware. Fortunately, one of the necessary things PC Live can do for you is to help determine what is a virus and what is Spyware, and regardless of the type, have that malware removed.

Tomorrow’s entry discusses the most important weapon the bad guys use to infect your computer: human engineering.

Worms and Trojans

Two variations on the computer virus are the worm and the Trojan horse. Both are malware; the differences between both and the standard computer virus are trivial and insidious.

A worm is merely a virus that is self-replicating. In fact, the first virus (and its viral cure) were really worms. They infected a computer, performed some operation, then replicated themselves on other computers.

Many early viruses were also worms. In addition to infecting the computer, they would modify the operating system so that newly formatted floppy disks also carried a copy of the virus. That’s how the virus would spread. (Now imagine the communicative and connective properties of the Internet, and you can see how worms are a big fat global problem!)

A Trojan horse is also a virus, but it’s sneaky — like the original Trojan horse that helped sack Troy 2,500 years ago. Unlike the Greek original, a software Trojan is often disguised as something else.

For example, I had a Trojan horse on my first DOS computer for years: the program DOSKNOWS was a Trojan. On the surface it reported interesting statistics about the computer. But when your hard drive grew more than 50% full, DOSKNOWS erased everything. Because my hard drive never grew more than 50% full, the program never triggered. But I don’t recommend that anyone live on the edge like that.

Tomorrow I’ll cover the final horseman of the PC apocalypse: Spyware.

Viral Anatomy

The first computer virus appeared back in the 1970s. It simply replicated itself on multiple computers, displaying an amusing message. Curiously, the second computer virus was designed to remove the first one.

Nasty computer viruses made their personal computer debut in the 1980s. A virus typically rode in on a floppy disk, infecting the computer when a program was run or when the PC was started using the floppy disk (which was common then). The disks often contained pirated software or games, which made the poor saps who wanted to steal software easy targets.

Once inside the computer, the virus’ behavior varied. Sometimes they’d sit and wait for certain conditions, sometimes they wreck havoc immediately, erasing files or formatting the hard drive. Unless the user backed up their files, everything would be lost.

The 1980s also marked the dawn of the anti-virus software, designed to fight the infections. Of course, no one wanted to wait until their computer was infected, but often it was too late. A good offense is better than being reactive and risking your important computer stuff.

Tomorrow’s entry will be on Trojan Horses and worms, which are variations on the virus theme.

The Evils of Malware

More often than not, when you hear the word virus used in a motion picture, they’ll be referring to something that infects computers, not human beings. That cultural touchstone demonstrates how far we’ve come in the past few years. The term computer virus is in the mainstream. That’s sad.

The real term you need to know is not virus, however. It’s malware.

Malware is a new word that combines malicious and software. It covers a broader definition of evil programs than then the more generic virus. In fact, there is some debate in the computer community as to what exactly is a virus, a Trojan horse, or a worm. Yet they can all be called malware.

The other top category of malware is called Spyware. Together, viruses, Trojan horses, worms, and Spyware form the four horses of the computer apocalypse. They contribute to an already confusing situation where you, the mere computer user, discover that another task you must perform in your daily PC life is to help defend yourself from malware attacks.

Over the next few days I’ll be writing more about these attacks and how you can protect yourself.

Let’s Shoot Some Trouble

Hello! I’m Dan Gookin, author of way too many books in the For Dummies series, as well as other books on technology and computers. Some of my recent titles include PCs For Dummies, Laptops For Dummies, Microsoft Word For Dummies, and (most relevantly) Troubleshooting Your PC For Dummies.

The idea of getting help with your computer should come as naturally as getting maintenance for your car or mowing your lawn. Though it’s said that computers are “easy to use,” the truth is that computers are not easy to understand.

If you understand a computer, and all that horrible computer science, then you can appreciate what a computer does. But because computers are sold like washing machines and toasters, people are often at a loss as to what to do or where to go for help.

It is my hope that this blog takes you one step closer to appreciating the task of keeping your PC up and running. Along with the good folks at PC Live, that’s a worthy endeavor. It’s doable. After all, you bought your computer to do things — surf the net, e-mail, word process, create, play games, listen to music, work with digital photos or video, and all that fun stuff. You most likely did not buy your computer so that you could spend all day fixing it.