Trojan Virus attacks: An analysis

What is a Trojan virus?

A virus that looks like a harmless and useful program but actually contains a code that can destroy data or install adware or spyware on your computer. Trojan viruses can be embedded in email attachments, programs that have been downloaded, or even through operating system vulnerabilities on your computer.

A recent tactic that hackers are using is to put the virus in pictures. Never download anything you do not recognize. Unlike the regular computer viruses Trojans do not replicate.

What does a Trojan virus do to your computer?

Trojan viruses can do much damage to your computer or worse, hackers can read the files and personal information from your computer and steal your identity. They can also add unwanted spyware and ad ware, deliver unsolicited pop-ups and advertising, all without your consent.

So how can get rid of them?

Most if not all antivirus programs will detect and remove Trojans, viruses and other unwanted programs from your computer automatically. For e-mail attachments, you may have to scan them individually. There are programs you can download that will do it automatically. There is plenty of anti-virus software free and paid out there that can look at. Payment programs usually have more features that can be used as a registry cleaner.

Whatever your choice may be, make sure you have installed the latest version, periodically perform system analysis, and updated with the latest version to keep your computer protected.

One of the most evil and insidious things ever invented was the Trojan virus. What person with dementia thought of this is beyond comprehension. Trojan virus infiltrates your entire computer system and affects its ability to quickly browse the Internet and in the worst cases can cause the entire system to crash, permanently delete data stored on your hard drive.

There are some steps you can take to the removal of Trojan viruses, to save all your data and installed software. If you take your computer to a repair shop or the Geek Squad you want to delete the entire hard drive after saving valuable documents. After going to reinstall the operating system software and make your computer virus free.

The problem with this method is that it is expensive, time consuming, and you can never recover the installed applications. Unless you have the original application software installation discs and registration number to go with it, you have to buy new programs. That can reach hundreds and even thousands of dollars if you have a lot of expensive programs installed as Photoshop, Dreamweaver, InDesign, ProSeries, and many others.

You can also simply download a virus cleaner and run it. That will solve more problems and run the Trojan virus removal desired. If your computer crashes or can not connect to the Internet, which happens a lot with Trojan virus infections.

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Keylogger Scanner to Remove Keyloggers

Nowadays both business and home computer users need to be aware of how to protect themselves from attack by computer viruses, spyware, malware, and fraudulent attempts to steal personal identity and financial data. Computers should always have up-to-date antivirus and other security programs installed, and all users should be familiar with those steps which are needed to protect personal identity when using the Internet.
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Keyloggers are a particular type of spyware, which usually will attempt to steal a person's user ID and password, when they log on to a particular website. Any good anti-malware or anti-spyware software should include a keylogger scanner, which would detect the presence of that program and remove it. I will also be introducing a high quality virus, adware and spyware software that speed up my PC significantly.

Those who use personal computers, whether at home or work, should understand the need to protect their computer from attack by computer viruses, spyware and malware. These programs can cause a lot of damage and inconvenience.

The authors of the very first computer viruses seemed to have been mainly interested in showing how clever they were, but modern virus and spyware infections are often designed and distributed for criminal purposes. Criminal gangs often use these infections to gain control of very large networks (millions of home computers in some cases), which they use for various illegal purposes. Often the networks are hired out to those who wish to distribute large quantities of e-mail spam.

Criminals also use virus, spyware and malware infections to attempt to steal people's personal identity, and therefore to gain access to their bank accounts. Keyloggers are often an element in these infections: they detect the user's ID and password when they are connecting to their online bank.

The user's ID and password can then be used fraudulently to steal money from the bank account. Users of online banks should be cautious about frauds of this type. Always follow the security advice provided on the security page of your online bank's website.

The so-called "phishing" attack occurs when fraudsters use e-mail or telephone calls to impersonate bank staff, and to trick customers into revealing their account details and password.

The best protection requires computers to have up-to-date antivirus and other security programs (anti-spyware, anti-malware) installed. These should also be configured to run regularly, preferably once per day. Keyloggers attempt to steal IDs and passwords when users are connecting to online services. The ability to detect and remove these scanners should be included in any good anti-spyware system. I am glad that all the spyware, adware and Trojan viruses on my computer are all gone now all thanks high quality software which I downloaded.

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Operating Systems: File Systems

File systems are an integral part of any operating systems with the capacity for long term storage. There are two distinct parts of a file system, the mechanism for storing files and the directory structure into which they are organised. In mordern operating systems where it is possibe for several user to access the same files simultaneously it has also become necessary for such features as access control and different forms of file protection to be implemented.
A file is a collection of binary data. A file could represent a program, a document or in some cases part of the file system itself. In modern computing it is quite common for their to be several different storage devices attached to the same computer. A common data structure such as a file system allows the computer to access many different storage devices in the same way, for example, when you look at the contents of a hard drive or a cd you view it through the same interface even though they are completely different mediums with data mapped on them in completely different ways. Files can have very different data structures within them but can all be accessed by the same methods built into the file system. The arrangment of data within the file is then decided by the program creating it. The file systems also stores a number of attributes for the files within it.

All files have a name by which they can be accessed by the user. In most modern file systems the name consists of of three parts, its unique name, a period and an extension. For example the file 'bob.jpg' is uniquely identified by the first word 'bob', the extension jpg indicates that it is a jpeg image file. The file extension allows the operating system to decide what to do with the file if someone tries to open it. The operating system maintains a list of file extension associations. Should a user try to access 'bob.jpg' then it would most likely be opened in whatever the systems default image viewer is.

The system also stores the location of a file. In some file systems files can only be stored as one contigious block. This has simplifies storage and access to the file as the system then only needs to know where the file begins on the disk and how large it is. It does however lead to complications if the file is to be extended or removed as there may not be enough space available to fit the larger version of the file. Most modern file systems overcome this problem by using linked file allocation. This allows the file to be stored in any number of segments. The file system then has to store where every block of the file is and how large they are. This greatly simplifies file space allocation but is slower than contigious allocation as it is possible for the file to be spread out all over the disk. Modern oparating systems overome this flaw by providing a disk defragmenter. This is a utility that rearranges all the files on the disk so that thay are all in contigious blocks.

Information about the files protection is also integrated into the file system. Protection can range from the simple systems implemented in the FAT system of early windows where files could be marked as read-only or hidden to the more secure systems implemented in NTFS where the file system administrator can set up separate read and write access rights for different users or user groups. Although file protection adds a great deal of complexity and potential difficulties it is essential in an enviroment where many different computers or user can have access to the same drives via a network or time shared system such as raptor.

Some file systems also store data about which user created a file and at what time they created it. Although this is not essential to the running of the file system it is useful to the users of the system.

In order for a file system to function properly they need a number of defined operations for creating, opening and editing a file. Almost all file systems provide the same basic set of methods for manipulating files.

A file system must be able to create a file. To do this there must be enough space left on the drive to fit the file. There must also be no other file in the directory it is to be placed with the same name. Once the file is created the system will make a record of all the attributes noted above.

Once a file has been created we may need to edit it. This may be simply appending some data to the end of it or removing or replacing data already stored within it. When doing this the system keeps a write pointer marking where the next write oparation to the file should take place.

In order for a file to be useful it must of course be readable. To do this all you need to know the name and path of the file. From this the file system can ascertain where on the drive the file is stored. While reading a file the system keeps a read pointer. This stores which part of the drive is to be read next.

In some cases it is not possible to simply read all of the file into memory. File systems also allow you to reposition the read pointer within a file. To perform this operation the system needs to know how far into the file you want the read pointer to jump. An example of where this would be useful is a database system. When a query is made on the database it is obviously ineficient to read the whole file up to the point where the reuired data is, instead the application managing the database would determine where in the file the required bit of data is and jump to it. This operation is often known as a file seek.

File systems also allow you to delete files. To do this it needs to know the name and path of the file. To delete a file the systems simply removes its entry from the directory structure and adds all the space it previously occupied to the free space list (or whatever other free space management system it uses).

These are the most basic operations required by a file system to function properly. They are present in all modern computer file systems but the way they function may vary. For example, to perform the delete file operation in a modern file system like NTFS that has file protection built into it would be more complicated than the same operation in an older file system like FAT. Both systems would first check to see whether the file was in use before continuing, NTFS would then have to check whether the user currently deleting the file has permission to do so. Some file systems also allow multiple people to open the same file simultaneously and have to decide whether users have permission to write a file back to the disk if other users currently have it open. If two users have read and write permission to file should one be allowed to overwrite it while the other still has it open? Or if one user has read-write permission and another only has read permission on a file should the user with write permission be allowed to overwrite it if theres no chance of the other user also trying to do so?

Different file systems also support different access methods. The simplest method of accessing information in a file is sequential access. This is where the information in a file is accessed from the beginning one record at a time. To change the position in a file it can be rewound or forwarded a number of records or reset to the beginning of the file. This access method is based on file storage systems for tape drive but works as well on sequential access devices (like mordern DAT tape drives) as it does on random-access ones (like hard drives). Although this method is very simple in its operation and ideally suited for certain tasks such as playing media it is very inneficient for more complex tasks such as database management. A more modern approach that better facilitates reading tasks that arent likely to be sequential is direct access. direct access allows records to be read or written over in any order the application requires. This method of allowing any part of the file to be read in any order is better suited to modern hard drives as they too allow any part of the drive to be read in any order with little reduction in transfer rate. Direct access is better suited to to most applications than sequential access as it is designed around the most common storage medium in use today as opposed to one that isnt used very much anymore except for large offline back-ups. Given the way direct access works it is also possible to build other access methods on top of direct access such as sequential access or creating an index of all the records of the file speeding to speed up finding data in a file.

On top of storing and managing files on a drive the file system also maintains a system of directories in which the files are referenced. Modern hard drives store hundreds of gigabytes. The file system helps organise this data by dividing it up into directories. A directory can contain files or more directories. Like files there are several basic operation that a file system needs to a be able to perform on its directory structure to function properly.

It needs to be able to create a file. This is also covered by the overview of peration on a file but as well as creating the file it needs to be added to the directory structure.

When a file is deleted the space taken up by the file needs to be marked as free space. The file itself also needs to be removed from the directory structure.

Files may need to be renamed. This requires an alteration to the directory structure but the file itself remains un-changed.

List a directory. In order to use the disk properly the user will require to know whats in all the diretories stored on it. On top of this the user needs to be able to browse through the directories on the hard drive.

Since the first directory structures were designed they have gone through several large evolutions. Before directory structures were applied to file systems all files were stored on the same level. This is basically a system with one directory in which all the files are kept. The next advancement on this which would be considered the first directory structure is the two level directory. In this There is a singe list of directories which are all on the same level. The files are then stored in these directories. This allows different users and applications to store there files separately. After this came the first directory structures as we know them today, directory trees. Tree structure directories improves on two level directories by allowing directories as well as files to be stored in directories. All modern file systems use tree structore directories, but many have additional features such as security built on top of them.

Protection can be implemented in many ways. Some file systems allow you to have password protected directories. In this system. The file system wont allow you to access a directory before it is given a username and password for it. Others extend this system by given different users or groups access permissions. The operating system requires the user to log in before using the computer and then restrict their access to areas they dont have permission for. The system used by the computer science department for storage space and coursework submission on raptor is a good example of this. In a file system like NTFS all type of storage space, network access and use of device such as printers can be controlled in this way. Other types of access control can also be implemented outside of the file system. For example applications such as win zip allow you to password protect files.

There are many different file systems currently available to us on many different platforms and depending on the type of application and size of drive different situations suit different file system. If you were to design a file system for a tape backup system then a sequential access method would be better suited than a direct access method given the constraints of the hardware. Also if you had a small hard drive on a home computer then there would be no real advantage of using a more complex file system with features such as protection as it isn't likely to be needed. If i were to design a file system for a 10 gigabyte drive i would use linked allocation over contigious to make the most efficient use the drive space and limit the time needed to maintain the drive. I would also design a direct access method over a sequential access one to make the most use of the strengths of the hardware. The directory structure would be tree based to allow better organisation of information on the drive and would allow for acyclic directories to make it easier for several users to work on the same project. It would also have a file protection system that allowed for different access rights for different groups of users and password protection on directories and individual files.Several file systems that already implement the features ive decribed above as ideal for a 10gig hard drive are currently available, these include NTFS for the Windows NT and XP operating systems and ext2 which is used in linux.

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How to Remove a Computer Virus?

If you have used a computer long enough, then you have probably had a virus infect your computer at some point. You know how annoying and potentially dangerous they can be to your PC and you wish you knew how to remove a computer virus. There are many ways to take care of this problem, but only a few of them are really good. Using a high quality anti adware and spyware software has helped to clear up my PC of annoying pop ups and increased its speed significantly.
There are several good programs to use that are trusted by millions of people the world over. Most users are not that technically savvy so they will not know the extent of the damage that a virus has done to their computer. Downloading this program will not only get to the root of the problem, but it will kill it as well.

One of the better things about this is that you do not have to be a technical geek to be able to use it. The directions are easy to follow and very effective at getting the job done correctly. There are only a few steps involved and at a certain point, all you have to do is sit back and let the program work its magic. This is the ideal program for those whose lives are busy and do not have the time to babysit the process.

There are many ways that a PC can get infected and viruses are always updating themselves as to how to infect your computer. They are sneaky like this and it is why they are constantly coming back. Anti adware software knows this and keeps itself updated as well with the latest methods that can effectively thwart those attacks. It can be seen as a battle of wits that anti adware programs are winning.

In addition to cleaning up and destroying the viruses in your PC, this anti adware program can also immunize your system so it doesn't get sick again. This is the best plan of attack that there is if you think about it. It's like a preventative maintenance program for your computer. It is effective, quick, and it leaves no stone unturned.

Once the virus is gone and your system has been immunized, then the anti-adware program implements the scanning process. This is a very neat and useful tool that allows you to periodically check on the status of your system. It knows what it is looking for and if it finds adware, will notify you of the issue.

As mentioned before, we all have busy lives that are run more effectively when on a schedule. The scanning process is no different in that you can set up a certain date and time for the scanning to take place. This way, if there is a problem, you can take care of it right away.

One reason why some viruses are so damaging to a person's system is that they are left undetected for long periods of time. The quicker you can identify the problem, the quicker you can fix it. Your PC has some very sensitive and important information on it, and the anti adware program can help you keep it all safe. I am glad that all the spyware, adware and viruses on my computer are all gone now all thanks to high quality software which I downloaded and would highly recommend it.

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Hard Drive Crash Prevention And Recovery Tips

The hard drive in our computers right now stores all of our data, and our computer could not function without it. There would be no World Wide Web, email or even an operating system without hard drives. Since hard drives are so important, a hard drive crash is without a doubt the biggest problem that someone could face on their computer.

Hard drive crashes can happen for many reasons, and usually the owner is not to blame. One reason your hard drive can crash is because of a hard ware problem. See your hard drive is a magnetic disc that spins and has an extended arm hovering over it, to access any area, and collect the data. If the motor overheats and stops spinning or the arm fails to function, then your hard drive will crash and not be accessible at all.
Another way for your hard drive to crash is from corrupt system files, registry files and viruses. Viruses come in many forms as spy ware, ad ware, in emails and many other places all over the web. I recommend a good virus protection program from McAfee or Norton to stop those viruses and prevent your hard drive from crashing.
Now let’s say your hard drive has crashed, how do you determine the problem and can it be fixed? Well determining whether the hard drive crash is mechanical of software related is actually pretty easy. The flashing light on front of your computer case, that blinks when the computer is busy, is a good tool to determine the problem. If you see the LED light flashing, but the computer will not boot up, then most likely it is a software related problem, which means an operating system glitch or a virus of some sort. Lucky for you this usually can be fixed and all of your files can be saved, but I recommend only letting a professional try and fix it since the average person might find it to difficult unless they have experience in formatting hard drives.
Worst case scenario is if you don’t see the LED light flashing in the front of your computer case, this means your hard drive has not activity which basically means it is a mechanical problem. A mechanical problem in your hard drive can be fixed, but I imagine it is pretty expensive. It is cheaper to get a new hard drive then to fix it, but of course if you have important data stored on the broken hard drive that you must get back, then you really have no choice but to have a professional fix it. You local computer store should have the expertise to repair it, but if not just ask them who can.
I should point out also though, that advanced hardware and software standards in today’s hard drives tell you when your drive is about to crash and gives you time to back up your important files.
Overall, the best way to stop your hard drive from crashing is to not neglect it and take care of it. The most important care tip is to make sure you defragment your hard drive at least once a month. Your operating system should come with a defragmenting program that is easy to use. Performing a defragment on your hard drive basically takes your data and organizes it into more convenient places so that the mechanical arm can access data faster and with the least amount of movement.
Another way to protect your hard drive from crashes is to purchase a good virus scanner, preferably by McAfee or Norton, and keep protection tools enabled and perform a full system scan of every file on your hard drive once a month.
Some other minor precautions that you can take are to enforce a SPAM guard on your emails and delete your temporary internet files every once in awhile. You should also keep your operating system up to date by downloading updates for it as soon as they come out. Windows makes this easy, but I am not sure how easy other operating systems make this or if they even provide this option.
If you are a person who downloads a lot of files from the internet, then you need to exercise caution in what you choose to download, as hard drive crashes are commonly associated with faulty software from unknown sources on the net.
Of course the best way to save you a headache if a hard drive crash happens is to back up your data regularly. Data loss is the reason a hard drive crash is so hurtful, so if you back up your data daily or whenever you work on it, then if a crash happens you will have no sweat on your back. I recommend you save your files to a rewritable CD/DVD or floppy disc as soon as you get done working on it, especially if the data is business related.

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Working With the Registry

The Registry is the central database for everything about your computer. It stores configuration information about the operating system, hardware, software, and types of files on the computer.
The registry database consists of "keys" and "values". A key is a "place" to store a value. A key may store many values, or it may have subkeys, each which store values. The Windows 2000 registry has five top level keys as listed below.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE Hardware configurations
HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG Operating system settings
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT Files types and software objects
HKEY_USERS All users configurations
HKEY_CURRENT_USER Currently logged in user configurations
The Registry is normally modified through Administrative or Control Panel utilities, but it is possible to edit the Registry directly. Making an incorrect modification to the Registry can cause your computer to fail to start, so it's wise to backup the Registry before making any changes.
To backup the registry, you can export it to an ASCII file with the .reg extension. You can export the Whole Registry or just a branch of the Registry. First select or create a folder where you would like to save the exported registry. To export the Registry, open the Registry Editor program by selecting Start | Run and typing regedit in the Run dialog box.
In the Registry Editor programs "Registry" menu, select "Export Registry File..." In The "Export Registry File" dialog box, navigate to the folder where you would like to save the exported registry. Then enter a name for the exported registry file (for example reg_date). Make sure the "Save as type:" drop down list has "Registration Files" selected. This will automatically add the .reg extension to the file. In the "Export Range" section, set the "All" radio button. Then click on the "Save" button.
If you export the entire registry, the .reg file will be quite large, between 20MB and 30MB. You might want to export just a specific branch of the registry. To export a branch, highlight the branch in the left pane of the Registry before selecting "Export Registry File..." in the Registry Editor programs "Registry" menu. In the "Export Range" section, make sure the "Selected branch" radio button is set.
One reason to export a Registry file is to be able use a text editor to search it. The Registry Editor prgram has a "Find..." function in the "Edit menu, but it's more difficult to use.
- Don't double-click the file to open it in a text editor, as the default action for a file with the .reg extension is to merge it back into the Registry.
- Before you edit the registry file, make a backup copy.
Right-click on the file and select "Open with..." in the popup menu, or drag and drop the file to Notepad or Wordpad. Then use the capabilities of the text editor to search and edit the exported registry branch.
After you have completed editing the file, you can import it back into the Registry by selecting "Import Registry File" in the Registry Editor program's "Registry" menu, or by double-clicking on the file name.
The Registry is normally modified through Administrative or Control Panel utilities, but by using the method described in this article it is possible to safely edit the Registry directly.
Copyright(C) 2004 Bucaro TecHelp.
Permission is granted for the below article to forward, reprint, distribute, use for ezine, newsletter, website, offer as free bonus or part of a product for sale as long as no changes are made and the byline, copyright, and the resource box below is included.

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Harmful Viruses And Other Malwares In Computers

A computer virus is often termed ‘malware’ because it is a type of malicious software. Other types of malware are worms and Trojans. Let’s take a look at each of these below.
Viruses

A virus usually arrives onto your computer hidden inside of another program which is often delivered by email attachments. It derives its name from the fact that just like a living virus, it needs a host to live and breed on. When you run the infected host program, you then launch the virus into the memory of your computer where it sets up home and waits to go about it’s intended function of destroying your files and infecting other computers.

Once the virus has infected your computer it waits for the programmed trigger to signal it into action. The trigger coded into the virus and can be anything from a specific date to a set number of times it has replicated itself.

Once triggered, it goes about the destruction it was designed for. It may be a simple deletion of files or pranks. It could also be programmed to destroy your operating system.

Viruses are commonly spread on email attachments. This is why you should never open an attachment unless you know who it was from. The problem is that sometimes it can appear as if a virus is just an attachment from someone in your address book, so always be on alert when you get an email with an attachment on it particularly if it is an .exe file.

Worms

Worms work a lot like viruses do. They are also self replicating and can reproduce so fast that they can overload and shut down entire systems. The difference between a virus and a worm is that the worm doesn’t require a host to live on. A worm is stand alone malware. They also usually hitch their way onto your computer through email but don’t need an attachment to ride on.

Trojans aka Trojan horses

Trojans take their name from the classic Greek story for they misrepresent themselves as well. They often pretend to be something they are not. Trojans are not self reproducing like worms and viruses but they can do just as much damage. They hide on other programs and record your keystrokes and steal passwords and credit card numbers.

Fighting malware

It is important to stay up to date with the latest methods being used to combat malware. Your computer can be destroyed by one of these nasty computer programs or your credit card and other personal information can be compromised. For starters it is a good idea to not open email attachments to reduce your risk of picking up a virus. Use a good virus detecting program and firewall to keep the pesky bugs out of your system.

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How To Scan and Fix Registry with Registry Cleaner?

Whenever you use your PC, it either reads or inserts entry onto a particular spot in its system. Overtime, this process can accumulate and cause some problems which are hard to ignore. It's because of this why you regularly have to scan and fix registry of your PC using related cleaner software. Continue reading to learn more about this. I will also be discussing a top quality registry cleaner software that speed up my PC quickly.

The computer has to remember a lot of things - hardware attached, selected system options, applications around, etc. Each time you use it, it has to go through all of these entries. However, there may also be invalid, missing or double entries. Such can be caused by anything from removing a hardware previously attached, to deleting a file or program.

When such happens, you will notice that the PC will begin to work a lot slower than before. Although it goes through all these entries in a very fast manner, still it may take some time if there's too much to read. Eventually, you will also notice certain programs will refuse to run, and system crashes will surface more frequently.

Of course you can always take your computer to an expert to have all unnecessary entries removed. However, it may come with a steep price tag. What's more, it's supposed to be done periodically to keep your computer in tip-top shape. Doing it on your own is definitely not recommendable, as you can even cause some irreversible damages.

What you can do is to install and run registry cleaner software. This will automatically examine each of the entries made from day one. It removes safely and effectively those which are already invalid, missing or were recorded twice. This is a much safer way for you to do so, instead of attempting to manually remove entries which can cause the PC problems.

You may scan and fix registry using free software you may find online. In downloading them, carefully read the system requirements so you're installing something that will work best for your computer. Also, see to it you get one from a reputable website. There are also those which you may purchase, often with other useful tools. I personally managed to clean up my computer by downloading high quality registry cleaner software.

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