Malicious Code that Exist in 2006

Malicious Code that Exist in 2006

Introduction

A Malicious Code can simply be defined as a term that is used to discuss and depict any code used in any section of a script or a software system, which is meant to cause various security breaches, several undesired effects, or damage to any system. The Malicious Code can also be defined as a security threat application, which cannot be effectively controlled by the conventional used antivirus software alone. In addition, the tremendous technology used by the hackers while designing and creating these codes has been perfected to the point that they are so perfectly well disguised with the user's traffic flow or data that it is almost impossible to detect them. This is one of the reasons why there has been conducted extensive research over the years regarding these malicious codes. The aim of this paper is also to discus some of the newly used malicious codes by the hackers in the advanced network systems in 2007.

Discussion

It was in the early 1980s when the first ever personal computer hit the market. It took only five years for the hackers to bring these PCs to its knees. In 1985, on 27 October there was propagated accidentally a status-message virus to the computer system. It is interesting to note that this incident was not the first of its kind. The history mentions several incidents even before 1985 when the self-replicating codes were being developed and used, In fact, in 1981, numerous viruses and codes were infecting the computers and the network system. While the overall quantity of the malicious codes in the form of viruses grew gradually since the late 1980s, hacking world was dominated by only a small number of the very successful viruses and codes. For instance, Jerusalem was recorded to spread across various academic institutions, enterprises, and government agencies. In fact, on 13 May in 1988, also known as the 'Black Friday', Jerusalem resulted in the first major virus attack (Rhee, 2003).

In later years, Vienna virus also spawned numerous variants thereby following its source code's publication. Cascade, known worldwide for being a first ever encrypted virus, into the 1990s continued to create trouble for many computer network administrative bodies. The first Trojans, which appeared in late 1980s, was initially introduced as innocent programs. However, once the unwary user ran that program, a harmful payload would be delivered by the Trojan. For instance, Twelve Tricks was the hacked version of a program called hard disk benchmarking. Another example of the Trojans in the past is Aids Information Disk. The virus attacked and used the floppy disks to introduce the malicious codes within the computer or the networks in late 1989 (Rhee, 2003). It is important to note that the malicious codes used in the recent age follow, more or less, the same fundamentals principles. However, they have only advanced in terms of the ability to self-replicate and disguise and the extent up to which the codes can harm ...