Week 8: Checkpoint: Threat Categorization

CheckPoint: Threat Categorization

IT/240

CheckPoint: Threat Categorization

Boot sector – A region of the hard drive or data storage that has codes that are loaded into the memory/RAM from the computer’s firmware.

File – A computer resource for storing information.

Multipartite – A computer virus that has the ability to infect and spread various ways.

Macro – A pattern that shows how a certain input of characters can be mapped.

Trojan horse – A type of malware that is disguised as a useful or helpful file, once the computer is infected it gives the hacker ability to gain access to the users information, harm the computer or add more malware.

E-mail worms – An e-mail normally with an attachment and once the attachment is open, your email client becomes infected and starts sending the worm to contacts in your address.

Instant messaging worms – A self-replicating worm that is sent over instant messaging applications.

IRC worms – (Internet Relay Chat) A program that uses IRC to spread itself. It is spread when it establishes a connection to IRC server or client.

File-sharing networks worms – A program that is spread by downloading on a file sharing or p2p network and copies itself into a shared folder (local machine) as a harmless name.

Internet worms – A program that spreads across the internet by copying itself on other computers through their network connection.

Last week, I had mentioned several types of threats that I had researched. I spoke about threats from pirated software. I also realized that these types of threats can be categorized under both the file-sharing network worm’s directory and the Trojan horse directory.

One may be downloading pirated software illegally on P2P/file sharing network which is normally how this type of threats occurs. This typically happens when a user downloads something and then the worm is downloaded too with the user not knowing. He keeps on sharing his files on the P2P network and infects the other...