Part IV: Network Worms and Local Viruses

Chapter List

Chapter 16: Life Cycle of a Worm

Chapter 17: Local Viruses in the UNIX World

Chapter 18: Viruses in Scripts

Chapter 19: ELF Files

Chapter 20: Method of Capturing Control

Chapter 21: Main Symptoms of Virus Infection

Chapter 22: Simplest Windows NT Virus

Part Overview

We are living in a disturbing time. The Internet shudders under attacks of network worms, and their activity grows rapidly . The winds of change bring not only the odds and ends of destroyed information but also the crispness of the impendent storm. Storm clouds highlighted with flashes of thunderbolts are gathering at the skyline, and thunder confirms the seriousness of potential threat. During the last five years , there were five devastating epidemics. Millions of machines all over the world were infected, all because of the nightmare of overflow errors. None of these worms destroyed information, but this was only because of lucky circumstances and the mild temper of virus writers. However, the danger was more than real. Just imagine what would happen to civilization if strategically important hosts were wiped clean of all vital data. As I said, this threat is real. This will happen, sooner or later. Worms come from the darkness of nonexistence, springing up from the subconscious of their creators , and then return underground . Worms never die; instead, they are transformed into new ideas. The first known worm was the Morris virus. The last worm was Love San. The future of the worldwide Internet depends on you, on your hands, and on your gray cells .