Computer VirusesStandard A-4 (Safety Unit)

Need to Know

1. Computer Crimes

2. Types of Computer Crimes

3. Computer Virus

4. Types of Infections

5. How computer viruses and biological viruses are similar

6. Prevention Methods

7. Anti-Virus Software

What are Computer Crimes?

• ______________committed through the use of a computer. It can also involve the theft of a computer and any equipment associated with the computer.

Types of Computer Crimes

• ____________– Conduct that involves the manipulation of a

computer or computer data in order to obtain money, property, or value dishonestly or to cause loss.

• ______________– Involves invading someone else’s computer,

usually for personal gain or just the satisfaction of invasion.

Other Computer Crimes

• __________________– An employee uses a company’s

computer for personal use such as running a small business, keeping records of an outside organization, or keeping personal records.

• _______________– Changing data before it is entered into

the computer or after is has been entered into the computer.

Computer Viruses• A ________ is a program which reproduces

itself, hides in other computer code without permission and does nasty or undesirable things, not intended by its victim.

• Computer viruses are called viruses because they share some of the traits of biological viruses. Computer viruses pass from computer to computer like a biological virus passes from person to person.

Types of Infection• ____________—small piece of software that

piggybacks on real programs• ___________—an e-mail virus moves around in e-mail

messages and usually replicates itself by automatically mailing itself to dozens of people in the victim’s e-mail address book

• ____________—a small piece of software that uses computer networks and security holes to replicate itself

• ____________—a computer program that claims to do one thing (it may claim to be a game) but instead does damage when you run it (it may erase your hard drive)

Types of Infections

• ____________________– Virus that does not cause its damage until a Virus that does not cause its damage until a

certain date or until the system has been certain date or until the system has been booted a certain number of times.booted a certain number of times.

• __________________– Virus triggered by the appearance or Virus triggered by the appearance or

disappearance of specified data.disappearance of specified data.

An Ounce of Prevention

1. Don’t share storage devices with anyone.

2. Don’t download anything from the Internet

3. Install anti-virus prevention software on your computer.

4. Never recycle storage devices that you know once contained a virus.

5. Don’t download an attachment file from the Internet because it could be infected with a virus.

An Ounce of Prevention(continued)

6. Never double-click on an attachment that contains an executable that arrives as an e-mail attachment.

– (Attachments that come in as Word Files (.DOC), spreadsheets (.XLS), images (.GIF AND .JPG), etc., are data files and they can do no damage.

– A file with an extension like EXE, COM, or VBS is an executable, and an executable can do any sort of damage it wants. Once you run it, you have given it permission to do anything of your computer.

PopularAnti-Virus Software Program

Norton (Symantec Company)

McAfee (Network Associates Company)

Command Software Systems, Inc.

Discussion Questions

1. Why do you think someone would want to create a virus, knowing that it would harm others and their computers?

2. How can we prevent ourselves from becoming a victim of a computer virus?

Debate/Discussion

Suppose a person’s medical records were corrupted by a computer virus, and that person died because of faulty (or missing) medical information.

If you were the judge, what would you decide for the hacker who created the computer virus?

How did you come to this conclusion?

Sources

http://www.howstuffworks.com/virus.htm

http://www.cert.org/other_sources/viruses.html(numerous resources on computer viruses, hoaxes, antivirus software, etc.)

www.animationfactory.com (virus template for PowerPoint)

Brainstorming Activities1. Give examples of ways in which the

computer has become important to our everyday lives.

2. Discuss viruses as they pertain to the human body (illnesses), and why it is important to contain them.

3. Discuss computer viruses and why they are important to the health of our computers.

4. Name computer viruses.