Do you know what network worms are? They are a specific, special type of virus. The environment of common malicious programs is the file system, and worms enter our devices through the network. In addition, they can get to the PC not only through e-mail or the Internet, they are subject to other network technologies. Therefore, the topic of this article is network worms and protection against them. After all, they penetrate through the networks of mobile network operators, and local LAN-networks, and IRC-networks for chats, and P2P networks, designed for direct file sharing between users directly, and the network of services used for instant messaging.
A bit of network worm history
The first information about their action appeared in 1978. Xonox and John Schoch, programmers at Xerox, wondered about collecting and processing information from all computers onto one central one. After some time, each PC of the company, having processed the required amount of work, transferred the result to the program that our programmers wrote, and while it was on the local network, after processing the data, it sent them to the central computer. Very quickly, friends lost control of their program and for a long time could not understand what was happening.
Uncontrolled traffic appeared, then the entire network was blocked. Having studied the problem, programmers discovered a variety of viruses, which were called network viruses. Older computer users should also remember w32.Blaster.worm, a worm that infected Windows from 2000 to XP and prevented it from accessing the Internet by restarting the computer. In November 1988, Morris Worm gained fame, infecting 10% of all world computers due to a small error in the code author. For a week, these PCs did not function, causing damage of the order of $ 100 million. Therefore, such a topic as network worms and protection against them is very important and its significance only increases over time.
Types of network worms and their path to the computer
What are the tasks of these malware? Minor - to penetrate into your device, activate in it and begin to multiply, but not only in your PC. Hence, the main task is to get through other people's devices through the network. What are they, their types? The bulk of this particular virus is mail worms that enter a computer with a file attached to an email. The user activates it himself, trying to open it. This is especially true for inexperienced computer scientists who do not notice anything suspicious of the extension of the executable file, since often only the false is visible.
Therefore, you always need to follow the old recommendation - do not respond to letters from unknown people. When activated, network viruses find email addresses on the device and send them a copy of their loved ones. In a similar way, worms “crawl” through IRC clients, ICQ, and other similar messengers. Sometimes they penetrate the PC due to gaps in the operating system, software, and browsers. There are other types of network worms: IRC worms, P2P worms, and IM worms. We think it’s clear from the names what they do and how they get to the PC.
Other tasks of network worms and their symptoms on a computer
Their principle of action is similar to the activity of some other malware, such as trojans. Having completed their main task, they begin to perform other tasks. Among them: the installation of programs to control the (remote) infected computer, data theft, data destruction, that is, everything that the creator programmed for them.
But even without these additional actions on the device, the volume of traffic increases, performance drops, communication channels are loaded. This is a clear sign of the presence of a worm in the system. If the operation of the antivirus is blocked, then this is another fact that you need to pay attention to. Access to antivirus software sites may even be blocked.
How to protect yourself from network worms?
You and I considered the first part of the expression quite well - network worms and protection against them, now let's proceed to the second. We want to immediately warn that a conventional antivirus with basic functionality will not help you much, at best it will detect the very fact of the threat and block it. But this will not prevent another malware company from climbing to you through the network again. But if your PC is connected to the network, a good antivirus is a necessary condition for its operation.
Protection against network worms is included in the functionality of the operating system itself. She has the tools for this, which, at a minimum, significantly reduce the risks of infection. The main one is automatic OS update and activated firewall / firewall. In pirated assemblies, this is often disabled, which is fraught with serious problems. After all, it is the firewall that checks all the data arriving at the computer on the network and decides whether or not to pass it through.
Third-party protection against network worms
In order to strengthen the protection of your computer against network worms, hacker worms and other viruses, it is recommended to install a third-party firewall as an alternative solution. Such programs, due to a narrower focus, have more flexible settings. The following are popular among users: Comodo Firewall - completely free software and Outpost Firewall Pro - paid.
In order to be constantly on top of all the novelties of the fight against the new “infection”, we recommend that you contact the viruslist ru resource. Network worms are all there, the appearance of new ones is tracked, and you will immediately know about it. By the way, in addition to well-known antiviruses, worms also block access to the VirusInfo resource, which has a service for free treatment of devices for various infections.
conclusions
Briefly compatible in several sentences the entire life cycle of the development of network worms:
- Penetration into your system.
- An important point is activation.
- Search for potential victims.
- Production and preparation of copies.
Further distributions of copies.
Now draw conclusions. We hope that you already well understood what network worms are, and protection against them is real at the very first stage. Then there will be no problems. So protect your computer from the penetration of threats, and then you will not have to spend a lot of effort to deal with the consequences.