virus

A well-known Windows virus is spreading to Apple PCs as well. The virus is known as trojan.osx.boonana.a, though it appears to be the same as the so-called Koobface virus which first affected Windows PCs. In both cases the virus spreads through ... social networking sites, most notably Facebook. The virus gets on to computers through bogus messages and one of the most common is some variation on "Is this you in this video?" Clicking the link on this message then runs a Java applet that attempts to download and install the virus. (Source: yahoo.com ) Once installed, trojan.osx.boonana.a (also ... (view more)

Analysis of a major worm virus that specifically targets industrial control systems shows that three-fifths of the infected machines were in Iran. There's now speculation that the country's nuclear program was the target -- and that a national ... government might have been the culprit. It has been known since July that the Stuxnet virus targeted Iran. Over a three-day period that month, 58.85 per cent of all Stuxnet-infected machines were in the country. (Source: symantec.com ) Infrastructure Under Attack The virus is carefully crafted to breach SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) ... (view more)

Dell has agreed to replace computer equipment that shipped with a data-stealing virus. The company is hoping to deal with the issue before any users suffer at the hand of criminals. Unlike most hacking attempts, which rely on accessing a victim's ... machine through an Internet connection, this incident brought up the possibility of whether or not malicious software was in fact being physically installed on machines at the factory. The issue only involves replacement parts for servers, however. These replacement parts are for computers that are primarily used to host websites and, in business ... (view more)

A researcher at the UK's University of Reading has given new meaning to the term "having caught a virus." Dr. Mark Gasson has actually self-implanted an RFID (radio frequency identification) chip into his wrist, and then purposely infected it with a ... computer virus. The virus itself was installed onto a corrupt RFID tagging chip. This is the same kind of tracking mechanism that is sometimes embedded into pets to help identify them if they become lost. The device works by using electromagnetic energy to transmit small amounts of data. For pets, however, the data is simple code that corresponds ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Ken C. writes: " Dear Dennis, After a virus recently infected my PC, I was forced (once again) to format my hard drive and do a clean installation of Windows. I'm getting better and better at this. My PC is now protected by ... McAfee, supplied by AT&T U-Verse Wireless High-Speed. Aside from an erratic mouse, my PC is operating satisfactory. My question is this: is it possible for a virus to infect memory modules (RAM) of my PC? I ask because a couple of years ago something went amiss, and one of the Dell techies (over the phone) advised me to unplug and then re- ... (view more)

Having a rootkit (virus) installed on your PC is a bad thing. That's because by definition, rootkits are specialized malware programs that are stealthy in nature and are near-impossible to detect and remove. In searching for a solution, however, ... it's understandable that infected PC owners would look to a software company like Microsoft to fix a problem affecting its operating system -- in this case, Windows XP. Unfortunately, that's not the case for many users with PCs suffering from the Alureon rootkit virus. Microsoft Update Causes Infected PCs to Crash Alureon, or Win32/Alureon.A, infects ... (view more)

When Chinese officials warned Internet users of a new worm inching around online earlier this week, little was known about the virus. The source of the worm has now been identified as a direct descendant of the "Panda Burning Incense" virus which ... had infected millions of Chinese PCs almost three years ago. Also called Fujacks, the original Panda worm was initially launched during a time when public knowledge about computer security was lesser known than it is today. Not surprisingly, national panic ran wild as users sat back and watched in vain as the image of a panda bear holding three ... (view more)

The iPhone has been hit by a virus for the second time this month. And this time the consequences are more significant than an unwanted picture of Rick Astley . A couple of weeks ago, a worm virus left some users of the iPhone with the image of 80s ... singer Rick Astley as their wallpaper. The virus only worked on phones which had been jailbroken: that is to say, their owners had altered them so that they could run software without Apple's authorization. Unfortunately, some of those who did so left the handset prey to a major security breach if they failed to change the default password for ... (view more)

If your iPhone's wallpaper has suddenly changed to a picture of singer 1980's singer sensation Rick Astley, it's not just a prank by a friend. Instead, it's a worm virus that could lead to significant harm. The problem only affects "jailbroken" ... handsets, those which have been adapted by the user to allow them to run applications without any restrictions. Note that a jailbroken iPhone is different from an unlocked iPhone, which allows the phone to make calls on any network. The worm takes advantage of the fact that many people who have jailbroken their phone go on to use a file transfer system ... (view more)

Alvo Alvo is a tiny stand alone DOS program that encrypts and decrypts any kind of file with a very safe and fast 'csprng' algorithm. Interested? Click the link and Alvo's makers explain the idea with step-by-step screen shots. If you're a math / ... stats / computer-science geek, you'll appreciate how the algorithm for Alvo came about via the main page . http://www.number.com.pt Computer Virus Tutorial 'Computer Virus Tutorial' is an informative tutorial on computer viruses that explains what a computer virus is, a history of computer viruses, discussion of protection from viruses, and mentions ... (view more)