Top 10 Most Dangerous Computer Viruses
As terrible
as it sounds, PC viruses can be highly destructive and dangerous. Viruses are
worst enemy of computer; they harm our system in worst way possible. The
viruses act like a disease to damage all the parts of our innocent machines in
one way or the other.
Top most
dangerous computer viruses are provided to show the history of such viruses
which hovered over the net and effected many users time to time. Some measures
for the questions of How to secure your PC are also given for the prevention of
such intrusions. We're
going to take a look at top 10 of the destructive computer viruses to cripple a
computer system. Now let’s start………
Top 10 Most Dangerous Computer Viruses
It is quite
difficult to count on their total number, but here are the top 10 most dangerous
computer viruses ever are:
ILOVEYOU:
The Virus was
spread through showing a love message that spread widely, its main effects were
that it destroyed all the files of users and would send its copy to the other
contacts listed in users contact list. This virus has made large corporations
to shut down their e-mail services to prevent infection. The bug was transmitted via e-mail
having a subject line “I LOVEYOU” – a notion appealing to many of us with an
attached file to it which reads as – Love-Letter-For-You.TXT.vbs. As soon as
the file was opened, the virus took the freedom of emailing itself to the first
50 contacts present in the Windows address book.
Code Red
This virus
was for the first time detected by two of the eEye Digital Security employees
and at the time when they discover the virus, they were drinking Code Red
Mountain Dew; therefore it was named as Code Red. The worm targeted computers
with Microsoft IIS web server installed, exploiting a buffer overflow problem
in the system. The goal of this virus is to get the strength of infected
computers and attack their numerical internet addresses which represent the
White House
Melissa
Melissa is the fast spreading micro viruses ever. On 26th
March, 1999, this virus became the headline of the news all over the world. It had
damaged thousands of computers in no time. This virus made use of Microsoft
Outlook and contaminated the systems via emails. Melissa has caused the
Microsoft Corporation to shut down incoming email.
Sasser
Sasser is a window worm which was first discovered in 2004. The
effects of worm Sasser were incredibly disruptive with millions of computer
being affected. Most computer virus needs human intervention to spread but
Sasser used vulnerability of LSASS and then, scan several internet addresses
until it could use a system. Then, it copies itself to the directory of the
Windows as an executable file and it is then launched the next time your pc is
booted. One symptom that your pc is affected when the pc restart every time you
try to go online. Sasser can spread from one machine to another.
Zeus
Created in 2007 this virus was capable of showing all the
passwords and information of the user making the accounts of a user vulnerable
to the usage to an anonymous party. The majority of computers were infected
either through drive-by downloads or phishing scams. First identified in 2009,
it managed to compromise thousands of FTP accounts and computers from large
multinational corporations and banks such as Amazon, Oracle, Bank of America,
Cisco, etc. Controllers of the Zeus botnet used it to steal the login
credentials of social network, email and banking accounts.
Conficker
Conflicker is a highly dangerous virus which got recognized
in 2009. A virus capable of intruding in system and disclose all the financial
information was taken to be the most dangerous virus as it was impossible to
detect and prevent the problem caused by this virus. This is likely to spread
via Microsoft Windows’ operating systems and its different software. It might
spread via removable drives like hard disks, smart phones and other thumb
drives adding a corrupt file to it so that when the device is attached to
another computer, the AutoPlay dialog box display an additional option.
Stuxnet
Stuxnet, a computer worm was discovered in July 2010 and
unlike other worms, this worm specifically targets computers, which run
critical infrastructure like water treatment, oil pipelines, gas pipelines and
power grid.
Mydoom
My Doom’s damage was detected back on 26th January,
2004. The worm spreads itself by appearing as an email transmission error and
contains an attachment of it. It is a virus that bounced over other system and
gets installed as soon as the user opens the email. This is a highly dangerous
and randomly spreading virus. It is spread via spam email attachments
containing attractive statements like “You have your cheque inside the
attachment, please open it” etc.
CryptoLocker
CryptoLocker uses several methods to spread itself, such as
email, and once a computer is infected, it will proceed to encrypt certain
files on the hard. While it is easy enough to remove the malware from the
computer, the files will still remain encrypted.
Flashback
The Trojan was first discovered in 2011 by antivirus company
Intego as a fake Flash install. Flashback appears to be the most widespread Mac
malware we’ve seen since the days when viruses were spread on infected floppy
disks; it could be the single most significant malware infection to ever hit
the Mac community.
How to Secure your PC:
The best way to secure your PC is to always keep an updated
antivirus installed in your system. Do not open the spam messages with
attractive subjects and if using an anonymous USB drive be sure to scan it
carefully.
Other Beneficial Links:
No comments:
Post a Comment