Computer Safety
There are various viruses that have been used to attack machines in the last. The Storm worm was one of the most popular worms to attack. This worm attacked through an e-mail that was sent to internet users in 2007. Its debut was on January 19th 2007 and it eventually attacked more than 8 percent of the affected machines in the year (Snopes 1). During the attack, the worm resulted in various impacts. For instance, the worm sent several e-mails from attacked computers as well as other tasks. Another virus that attacked computers was called Melissa. The worm targeted all the users of pornographic internet sites. The worm duped the internet users that they would get access to free pornographic internet sites. The infection led to various effects such as ending mass e-mails to the first 50 people in a user’s address book in Outlook. In addition to this, accessing the email led to overwriting of all the important Microsoft files in the affected computer. The losses incurred as a result of Melissa totaled to $1 billion.
A third worm, referred to as “I LOVE YOU,” sent messages of love to all the users of Outlook. Accessing the messages led to more impacts such as overwriting of all the user’s files. This led to losses totaling up to $ 5 billion. Nimda was also another worm that gained prominence in 2001. Through actions such as sharing drivers and formation of guest user accounts in computers, the worm resulted in several losses (Porter 1). The increase in computer insecurity factors calls for action towards achieving greater computer safety. Actions such as activation of windows update, installation of antivirus programs, securing the home network, installing anti spyware and use of other browsers besides Internet Explorer can all help to reduce vulnerability to security attacks.
Works Cited
Porter, Ned. Top 10 Computer Viruses and Worms. Web. 7 MAR. 2013. <http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/top-computer-viruses-worms-internet-history/story?id=8480794>
Snopes. Storm worm. Web. MAR. 2013. http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/storm.asp
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