Worms, Viruses & Trojans

You start your fairly-new computer up and begin to wait for the boot process to complete.   After 10 minutes of agony you’re finally at the desktop screen.   You notice the icon below indicates that you have full access to the internet and you decide you want to surf the web.   You click on your web browser and the computer sounds as if it’s processing the data but you receive delayed feedback.   Once you’re online, as routine, you check your e-mails.   You then notice an email entitled, “Congratulations!!! Claim your free iPad!”   You click on it and suddenly windows continuously start popping up one on top of the other causing your computer to crash.   Congratulations!   You have just been a victim of a malware attack.
Malware is malicious software designed for tampering or damaging a computer system.   Such tampering includes unauthorized changes to a user’s settings, obtaining vital information, and software program manipulation, malfunction or deletion.   Other malware threats can leave a system highly vulnerable for future attacks without the user even noticing an effect.   The most common examples of malware are viruses, worms, and Trojans. (What is malware?) (Wilson Technology Group, Inc., 2011)
A computer virus is malware that has the power to copy itself to other computer systems.   Mainly, it will attach itself to an executable file, such as those that help start up a computer.   This is because in order for a virus to spread, the infected program must be in use.   Typically, a virus is transferred through e-mail, file transfers and instant messaging; it will usually grasp on to files with the extensions .doc, .exe, or .bat.   A virus can email itself to anyone and everyone in an address book if that virus infected an e-mailing program such as Microsoft Outlook, Yahoo Mail, or America Online. (What is virus?) (Wilson Technology Group, Inc., 2011)
The Elk Cloner was the first virus spread ever known.   It was created in 1982 by a 15-year old high school student,...