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Title: Computer viruses - What are they? Who makes them and why? What's the solution?

  Computers are very important in many fields. As computer use increase, the damage caused by the computer viruses is also increasing. A computer virus is a program which destroys the data or computer programs in the computer system. Like a virus in microbiology, the computer virus also reproduces itself. The damage caused by computer viruses is a very serious problem all over the world. According to the ICSA(International Computer Security Association), the probability of one computer being affected by a virus is about 30%, and the normal cost for recovering the data damaged by viruses is almost $2,000 per computer. By this estimation, the annual cost caused by the computer viruses in Korea is almost 2000 trillion won, so we need to know about the computer virus.
  The history of computer viruses can be categorized by the its evolutionary  stages and its targets. The evolution of viruses has 4 stages: primitive viruses, encrypted viruses, hiding viruses, and armored viruses(polymorphic viruses). A primitive virus is a simple initial type of computer virus. The primitive virus uses no special tricks for deceiving vaccine programs. The "Jerusalem virus" is an example of a primitive virus. The encrypted virus contains some encrypted code, which makes it impossible for vaccine program to be effective without a routine for solving the encrypted part. The "stranger virus" is an example of it. The hiding virus maintains the size value of the file which it parasitizes as the same before infection, deceiving vaccine programs. The "McGyver virus" and the "Brain virus" are examples of hiding virus. An armored virus uses various encryption and hiding technique together. The "cascade virus", the "whale virus", and the "FCL virus" are examples of armored virus.
  The second category, targets, are of four types: boot viruses, file viruses, boot/file viruses and macro viruses. A boot viruses affects the boot section of the computer. The "brain virus" and "ping-pong virus" are examples of a boot viruses; a file virus affects files on the hard disk of the computer. The "Michelangelo virus" and the "Jerusalem virus" are examples of the file virus. A boot/file virus has the characteristics of both the boot virus and the file virus. The "Tequila virus" is an example of it. A macro viruses is completely different from the above virus types. It affects the macro portion of the MicroSoft office programs. So it affects not only the execution files but the document files. The "Love Bug" is an example of a macro virus.
  The first viruses spreads by copying the program or file infected by the viruses. But, nowadays, the absolutely different spreading method is developed. The "Melisa virus" and "Love Bug" spreaded by e-mail. This spreading method enables viruses to spread fast than other viruses have ever existed. The recent "Love Bug" phenomenon showed the evident effect of the viruses spreading by e-mail.  
  Computer viruses are most often created by amateurs or students. Creating a computer virus is not difficult because of the easy availability of both the kits for making computer viruses and the source code of the computer viruses. Thus, the number of computer viruses increases during the school vacation season. There also exists a pattern in which one or two virus creators appear suddenly, create 50 or more kinds of computer virus for a year or two, and then disappear suddenly. The popular group for virus creating which has made computer viruses are SVS and SVS-009. In spite of the similarity in their names, they are different groups.
  There are two major reasons for virus creation, one social and one individual. First are the political or economical reasons, which are the main motivations for the first virus creators. For example, the "brain virus" which was the first computer virus in the world, was created by Pakistani programmers who wanted to shock illegal programs bootleggers. The second reason may be the primary reason for most computer virus developers; they make the viruses to test their computer skills, or just for fun. Most student virus makers create computer viruses for this reason.
  The solution to the computer virus problem is very simple: education and continuous use of vaccine programs. Legal prohibition may not be the best solution, because the finding virus makers is not easy. This is because modern computer networks are so complex, and there are so many sources of viruses. As mentioned above, many virus makers are students. They are immature and might not recognize the seriousness of the computer virus problem. Education on ethical issues in computer use may be able to help them. Now, vaccine programs are so efficient that they work for almost all computer virus programs, so continuous checking may be the easiest and most efficient way to prevent the viruses from destroying valuable data in our expensive computer systems. The solution is never terribly complex, and is often simple even.