Computer Virus vs Biological Virus

What are the causes of more and more virus outbreaks in recent years vis a vis Computer virus and Biological Virus?

Computer Virus: Melissa virus In the spring of 1998, David L. Smith wrote a computer virus using macros in Word software. The virus can be transmitted by email. Smith named it Melissa, a dancer in Florida. The Melissa virus is usually transmitted by email, and the title of the email is usually "This is for your information. Don't let anyone see it." Once the recipient opens the message, the virus will automatically copy and send the same message to the first 50 friends in the user's address book. After Smith put it on the Internet, the virus began to spread quickly. 

The FBI report to Congress shows that Melissa has caused a devastating blow to government and private sector networks, and the US federal government takes this matter very seriously. The surge in e-mail traffic has forced many companies to stop e-mail services and reopen them until the virus is under control. 

Melissa did not cause much harm to society

After a long trial, Smith was sentenced to 20 months in prison and fined $ 5,000. In addition, Smith may not use the Internet without the permission of the court. Although Melissa did not cause much harm to society, it was the first computer virus to attract the attention of the whole society. Love bug virus One year after the Melissa virus outbreak, a new virus emerged in the Philippines. 

LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs

Unlike Melissa, what appeared this time was a worm, a standalone program with self-replication capabilities. The name of the virus is "ILOVEYOU". Similar to Melissa, the love bug virus was initially transmitted via email.

 The title usually states that this is a confession letter from your admirer. The attachment in the email is the culprit. The original file name for this worm was LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs. The suffix vbS indicates that the hacker is a program written in VB script. 

According to a report from the anti-virus vendor McAfee, the love bug has the following attack methods:   

• It will copy itself and have hidden backups on each partition of the hard disk.
• It will add new content in the user's registry.
• Self-copying, and then automatically replace some files.
• Spread through email and chat clients.
• Automatically download a patch named WIN-BUGSFIX.EXE, which will steal the user's private information and send it to the hacker. 

Who actually made this virus? 

Many people suspect it is O'Neal Di Guzman of the Philippines.

 Since there were no laws on computer destruction in the Philippines at the time, the authorities were able to summon Di Guzman in the name of theft. Guzman did not acknowledge or deny the allegations of the virus, and eventually the authorities were forced to release Guzman due to a lack of solid evidence.

According to media estimates, the love bug virus caused about $ 10 billion in damage. Cover Letter Virus Milestones for Cover Letter Virus (Klez) Virus Spread. 

The virus first appeared in 2001, and many variants appeared a few months later. The most common cover letter virus spreads via email, then copies itself, and sends the same email to contacts in the victim's address book.

Some cover letter viruses can even cause fatal damage to your computer.

Depending on the version, the cover letter virus can be divided into ordinary viruses, worms or Trojans. Some even forcibly shut down antivirus software or pretend to be virus removal tools.

 Soon after the cover letter virus appeared on the Internet, hackers improved it to make it more contagious.

 Like many viruses, the cover letter virus uses the victim's address book to send the same email to contacts. In addition, it can randomly select a person from the address book of the poisoned person, and fill the email address in the sender's location. This is email address spoofing-it looks like the message was sent by someone you know, but actually someone else sent it.

Masquerading email addresses are used to achieve the following purposes. First, the recipient is useless even if the sender is blocked, because the message was sent by someone else. 

Secondly, because the user cannot distinguish whether the email is spam, the cover letter virus will cause the recipient's mailbox to be blocked in a short time. 

In addition, since the sender is a contact on the mailing list, many people will open the mail and cause poisoning. Red Code and Red Code II Code Red and Red Code II appeared in the summer of 2001. 

Worms take advantage of an operating system vulnerability

Both worms take advantage of an operating system vulnerability in Windows 2000 and Windows NT, namely a buffer overflow vulnerability.

When the system buffer receives data that exceeds its processing range, the data overflows and overwrites adjacent storage unit, preventing other programs from running properly, and even causing the system to crash.

 

The original Red Code worm used a distributed denial of service attack (DDOS) to attack the White House website. In other words, all computers infected with the red code virus will connect to the White House website at the same time, overloading the server and crashing the website.

Windows 2000 is installed with the red code II

 If a computer with Windows 2000 is installed with the red code II, the machine will become a "broiler". The worm creates backdoors in the system, allowing remote users to log in and control. Computer terminology is system control, which is a bad news for the owner of the computer.

Distributors of the virus can use the victim's computer to obtain certain information, and even use this computer for criminal activities. 

Victims not only have to worry about the paralyzed computer, but also may be scapegoats for others. Although Windows NT is more susceptible to red code infections, the virus is not very harmful on these machines.

A network server using Windows NT may often crash after being poisoned, but it will not cause other harm. 

Compared with Windows 2000 users, this is actually nothing. Microsoft then released patches to fix security vulnerabilities in Windows 2000 and Windows NT. At this point, the virus no longer rages. But the patch does not remove the virus from the computer, which needs to be handled by the user. Nimda Another virus also appeared in 2001. This is Nimda (admin). Nimda spread quickly through the Internet and was the fastest spreading virus of its time. TruSecure Chief Technology Officer Peter Tippett said it took Nimda only 22 minutes from the start of the spread to the mass outbreak. 

The main target of the Nimda virus is Internet servers

When a virus infects a computer, its main purpose is to spread through the Internet. Nimda can be spread by various means such as email, which is why it can quickly and massively explode.

The Nimda virus will create a backdoor in the user's operating system, so that the intruder has the permissions of the current login account.

In other words, if the user logs in with a restricted account, the permissions of the intruder will also be restricted. Of course, if the user uses an administrator account, the intruder will also have administrator rights. 

Nimda Paralyzed Servers

The spread of Nimda virus paralyzed many servers, and server resources were occupied by worms. From this perspective, Nimda is also essentially a type of distributed denial of service attack (DDOS). SQL Slammer / Sapphire In late January 2003, a new server virus began to spread on the network. As many computers failed to take precautions, several important large computer systems eventually paralyzed.

Bank of America's ATMs were unavailable, Seattle's 911 service center was forced to suspend, Continental Airlines' booking system was paralyzed, and some flights were cancelled.

The culprit in this cyberstorm is SQL Slammer, also known as the Sapphire virus. Before the advent of patches and virus-killing software, the virus had caused $ 1 billion in damage worldwide [Source: Lemos]. 

Patching antivirus

The spread of sapphire virus is very rapid. A few minutes after infecting the first server, the virus began to multiply in a short period of time. After 15 minutes, half of important online servers were infected. The Slammer virus has taught us a profound lesson.

Patching and upgrading anti-virus software in time is not enough. Hackers will use any vulnerabilities they can find, especially those unknown. It is important to do anti-virus work before poisoning. 

At the same time, it is also necessary to do backup work in time to prevent the worst situation from occurring. 

Novig virus

 This Novarg virus, also called MyDoom, also leaves a backdoor in the user's operating system. The virus has since produced many variants. The original Novig virus had two triggers. 

The first program started a denial-of-service attack (DoS) on February 1, 2004, and the second program stopped self-replication of the virus on February 12, 2004. But after the virus stopped attacking, the remaining backdoors were still harmful [source: Symantec]. 

It didn't take long for another virus outbreak to kill several search engine companies. Like other viruses, the Novigue virus searches the contact list on the infected user's computer and sends an email. In addition, it will send a search request to the search engine and then send an email to the searched mailbox. 

This has caused search engines such as Google to receive millions of search requests, making their services very slow and even server down.

Novig virus spreads via email and P2P networks.

According to information from cybersecurity company MessageLabs, an average of 1 in 12 emails at the time carried the virus. 

Computer Viruses Similarity

Similar to the cover letter virus, the Novigue virus also pretends to be the sender of the email, which makes it extremely difficult to query the source of the virus by email.

Shock waves and cyber-sky viruses Sometimes virus makers can easily escape tracing. However, it is also possible for the authorities to find the source by tracing the way the virus spreads. This is how Sasser and NetSky were discovered.

Sven Jaschan created the two Computer Viruses

A 17-year-old German named Sven Jaschan created the two viruses and spread them across the Internet.

Although the two viruses are infected in completely different ways, similar codes lead experts to believe that they came from one person. Shockwave virus infects computers with Microsoft system vulnerabilities. Unlike other worms, it does not spread by email. 

Once a computer is infected with a virus, the virus will automatically find vulnerable computer systems and then remotely manipulate those computers to download viruses. The virus can search arbitrary IP address segments to find potential victims.

The virus will modify the user's operating system so that the user cannot shut down and can only force the power off. Cybersky viruses spread through mail and the web. It also performs email address spoofing and attachment self-replication [source: CERT].

When the virus spreads, a denial-of-service attack (DoS) is also performed to control the bandwidth resources. 

Sophos experts believe that CyberSky and its variants once infected one quarter of the computers on the Internet. Sven Jaschan did not go to jail, but was sentenced to a probation of 1 year and 3 months.

Computer Virus : Malicious Script

Since he was under 18 at the time, he escaped. Leap-A / Oompa-A Maybe you've seen this ad for Apple Computer, which contains "I'm Apple" played by Justin Long and "I'm a Computer" played by John Hodgeman. Hochman's computer crashed with a virus. He also pointed out that there are currently more than 100,000 viruses invading your computer. 

Apple Private Secure

Justin said that those viruses only infected computers with Windows, and did not work on Apple computers. In most cases, this is true. Apple cited its "private, secure" design philosophy to avoid the dangers of many viruses. Apple's hardware and operating system are basically closed systems, because they are produced by Apple.

It can also be said that Apple's operating system is a "private" system. Apple Computer has always occupied the second place in the home computer market, but it is still far from the PC.

It is conceivable that a virus targeting Apple computers cannot cause as much harm as a Windows virus. But that did not stop an Apple hacker from appearing. In 2006, Leap-A virus, also known as Oompa-A virus, appeared. It uses the iChat chat program to spread between Apple computers.

Virus on Apple Computers

When the virus infects Apple Computer, it will automatically search iChat's contact list and send a message to its friends with a damaged attachment that looks like an incomplete jpeg image.

Viruses don't do much harm to computers, and it proves that even Apple computers can be poisoned.

With the growing popularity of Macs, more and more viruses targeting Macs will emerge. Storm Worm The last virus on our list is the terrible Storm Worm.

Experts finally confirmed the virus at the end of 2006. The public called the virus a storm worm because an email carrying the virus had the subject line "Storm hits Europe and 230 people died." But security companies don't name it that way. 

Storm Worm

Symantec named the virus Peacomm, and McAfee named it Nuwar. This is because a virus was named W32.Storm.Worm in 2001.

This virus is completely different from the 2006 virus. Storm Worm is a Trojan horse program. Some variants of the Storm Worm can turn a computer into a zombie or "broiler". Once a computer becomes infected, it can be easily manipulated by a virus spreader. 

Some hackers use Storm Worms to create botnets that they use to send spam on the Internet. Many variants of Storm Worm will induce users to click on fake links to news or news videos. Virus makers often change the subject of viral emails to current news. 

On the eve of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, a new worm variant began to spread through emails, with the subject line generally saying "A major disaster in China" or "The earthquake with the most deaths in China" and so on. Emails usually have links to videos or news about related topics.

After users click the link, the worm will be downloaded automatically. Many news agencies and bloggers consider Storm Worm to be the worst virus in recent years. Security company Postini claims that as of 2007, more than 200 million emails had been found to carry the virus [source: Gaudin]. 

Fortunately, not all emails cause computer infections. Although storm worms are widespread, they are not the hardest virus to remove. As long as users always remember to update antivirus software and be alert to emails or links from strange users, they can generally prevent infection by this virus.

Biological Virus

In 1995, China reported the first case of norovirus infection, and several outbreaks of norovirus-infected diarrhea occurred in Shanxi, Beijing, Anhui, Fuzhou, Wuhan, Guangzhou, and Jiaxing. In December 2010, a Norovirus infection caused by water pollution occurred in Conghua, Guangzhou. 

A total of 429 people became ill and no one died. The Chonghua Norovirus infection incident was a general-level incident. After investigation, it was finally confirmed that the Norovirus infection was caused by water pollution.

At 17:00 on April 25, 2013, nearly 400 students in the Jieyang Vocational and Technical College in Rongcheng District, Jieyang City, suffered from physical discomfort to varying degrees, and some students even had symptoms such as vomiting, diarrhea and fever. 

According to preliminary analysis by the local CDC, the main cause is infectious diarrhea caused by norovirus transmission. As of 26th, 109 people have been discharged, and 173 students are still in hospital for observation. On February 19, 2014, some schools in Haining City and Haiyan County of Jiaxing City broke out with Norovirus. 

A total of more than 400 students became infected and sought medical treatment. The Haining Education Bureau has informed the city’s schools that classes will be closed from today to week 5 and will be closed on Saturdays and Sundays, and normal teaching will resume next week.

After the illness, the local county government launched a general public health emergency (level IV) emergency response this afternoon. County health, food and medicine departments have launched a series of prevention and treatment measures for school classrooms, dormitories, toilets and windows.

Diagnosis by the CDC

As of February 20, 2014, the outbreak affected 10 schools and 3 kindergartens in Haining City and Haiyan County, with a total of 511 reported cases. On March 20, 2014, in a kindergarten on Xiangheyuan Road, Dongzhimen, Beijing, many children suddenly developed symptoms of vomiting.

The person in charge of the park said that 20 children in the kindergarten were sick, mainly in small and middle classes. The CDC diagnosed two of the children and confirmed that they were infected with Norovirus.

 On May 20, 2014, the laboratory of Wuxi City Center for Disease Control and Control determined that a number of students who had vomiting and diarrhea symptoms in the Chang'an Central Elementary School in Huishan District had been infected with the virus caused by Norovirus. As of May 20, the virus was confirmed.

There were 39 cases of vomiting and diarrhea in the school, 38 of which were cured, and 1 was treated with fluid in the hospital. Amount of disinfection work. 

Around December 13, 2014, about 40 cases of monthly morbidity were found in the junior high school affiliated to the Second Affiliated Middle School of East China Normal University in Shanghai. As of December 29, a total of about 60 to 80 people became ill. 

 On January 7, 2015, 140 students of Shenzhen Lily Foreign Language School began to have vomiting and diarrhea of ​​varying degrees from January 5.

After testing, it has been determined that the cause of this symptom is Norovirus. No serious illness has been found in students. Shenzhen Longgang District and several municipal departments have been involved in the investigation and handling of the matter. On June 14, 2015, 254 people from Shandong Business College collectively had trouble and suspected of being infected with "Norovirus". 

 

As of 8:00 am on the 15th, the total number of cases was 254, and some patients had recovered, and about 60 still needed treatment.

According to the school's students, the actual number of outbreaks was more than 2,000. As of 10 am on the 18th, the number of cases has risen to 654. More than 300 of them have recovered initially, 256 have gradually improved, and 25 are still receiving treatment. 

On October 22, 2015, Norovirus broke out in Shandong Urban Construction Vocational College, and about 100 people were infected. On March 03, 2016, students from Panyu School of Guangzhou Normal University Affiliated Middle School had symptoms of vomiting and diarrhea. The on-site inspection of the disease control department confirmed that the infection was caused by norovirus. 

In order to prevent cross-infection of Norovirus, starting from the morning of March 10th, the school's entire school will be closed for disinfection. Students will return to the school on the evening of the 13th. 

On December 4, 2012, 26 children in a kindergarten in Fukuoka, Japan were collectively infected with norovirus and developed symptoms such as vomiting and diarrhea.

In response to this situation, the National Institute of Infectious Diseases of Japan said that after entering early December, there will be a large-scale outbreak of Norovirus throughout Japan, calling on all Japanese people to take precautions.

Who knows, before the word fell, a collective infection with Norovirus occurred in Osaka, Japan, and two people have died. 

The Japanese government has called for health clinics in all places to thoroughly clean and disinfect public places, and to thoroughly disinfect and sterilize vomit after treatment.

On June 18, 2012, students from Japan's Ishikawa Prefectural Ershui High School, who traveled to China for study trips, experienced symptoms such as diarrhea and fever after returning home.

The Kanazawa Health Center survey learned that as of the 18th, the number of people with the symptoms had risen to 139 people. The health clinic believes that students may have infectious gastroenteritis.

From the 11th, 357 sophomore students went to Shanghai, Suzhou and other places for a 4 day and 3 night trip. After returning to China on the 14th, 16 people missed school the next day and 16 people left early. The school immediately contacted Kanazawa Health Center.

Norovirus a Biological Virus from Japan

Norovirus has been detected in one student, but the infection has not spread to student families and other grades. From December 13 to December 16, 2012, a series of mass food poisoning incidents caused by Norovirus occurred in various parts of Japan. 

The number of poisonings increased from 49 in Nagoya City, Aichi Prefecture to more than 60 in Narita City, Chiba Prefecture, to 319 in Kai City, Yamanashi Prefecture, and finally to 1,381 in Hiroshima City, Hiroshima Prefecture. It is the largest collective food poisoning incident in Japan since 1996. 

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on January 31, 2014 that nearly 700 passengers and crew on a cruise ship to the Caribbean cruised to the gastrointestinal disease, and the culprit was norovirus.

Laboratory tests showed that Norovirus caused vomiting, diarrhea and other symptoms on 634 tourists and 55 crew members of the Royal Caribbean Cruises' Ocean Explorer cruise ship. "This is the largest outbreak of Norovirus in 20 years. outbreak". 

The agency has been investigating the outbreak for the past week. "Ocean Explorer" departed from the port of New Jersey in the United States on January 21, 2014, and cruised to the Caribbean Sea.

The original plan was 10 days. However, the outbreak soon broke out on the ship, and the cruise ship had to return two days in advance on January 29, 2014.

There were 3071 passengers and 1166 crew on board. Royal Caribbean Cruises has decided to refund passengers half of the cost and provide them with other compensation. However, the storm was not smooth. 

US media reported on January 31, 2014 that another cruise ship in the United States named "Caribbean Princess" was suspected of having a norovirus outbreak, and about 170 passengers and crew were sick.

Norovirus is a virus that can cause acute gastroenteritis

The main symptoms of infected persons are nausea, vomiting, fever, abdominal pain, and diarrhea. In severe cases, they can die from diarrhea and dehydration.

Norovirus is highly infectious and can be transmitted through contaminated water, food, items, air, etc., and can be concentrated in schools, restaurants, hospitals, nurseries and other places. 

On February 19, 2016, Norovirus infection spread at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and caused more than 100 students to become ill.

According to reports, the University of Michigan issued a statement on the 19th that more than 100 students were treated for vomiting and diarrhea. The Michigan State Department of Health has confirmed on the 21st that norovirus is the cause of student illness. 

A University of Michigan spokesman estimates the number of sick students is between 100 and 150. One student was hospitalized for dehydration. The virus first appeared in residential buildings in the west and south of the school. Officials at the school are identifying the source of the virus. 

USCDC on Norovirus

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, norovirus is highly contagious and may spread from the surface of patients, contaminated food, water, or contaminated bodies. The virus causes abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.

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