11 Dec The Top 5 Most Expensive Viruses and How to Avoid Them
A computer viruses is a type of malware that cause most of the problems in your PC like a system slow down, harm your PC, the most crucial ones can affect your data files and folder and even cause damage worth billions of capital.Some Viruses often perform harmful activity such as it stills hard disk space or CPU time, or may access your private information, and may corrupt your data, display political or humorous messages on the screen. . And the worst part is viruses can travel from one part of the world to another in less than seconds taking away all your data and systems files as computers are interconnected.
The Top 5 Most Expensive Viruses:
Code Red (2001): Code Red was a computer worm observed on the Internet on July 13, 2001 and named after the “Code Red Mountain Dew”which the discoverers of this virus were drinking. The Code Red worm caused more than $2 billion in damage. The worm exploited a vulnerability in the indexing software distributed with IIS web server and exploited weakness in the indexing software. When the worm infected a computer, it looked for other computers in the network to exploit. The virus was so widespread that it even penetrated to the White House’s server. Ironically, just a month ago prior to the attack, Microsoft had released a security report advising their users to set up a security patch in order to shield them from this kind of attack.
Melissa Virus:
The Melissa virus also known as “Mailissa”, It is a mass-mailing macro virus.Found on March 26, 1999, Melissa shut down Internet E-mail systems that got blocked with infected e-mails propagating from the virus and have affected up to 20 percent of computers worldwide. This included the networks of many other companies that relied on MS Outlook as their email client.People were forced to shut down email server, in order to prevent the virus from spreading, as well as to eradicate the virus from their system.
Conficker (2008):
The most current and worldwide spread internet virus also holds the title for the most dangerous computer worm. It targeted the Microsoft Windows operating system ranging from Windows 2000 to Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 and infected more than 12 million computers worldwide by now. It killed upon flaws within the system, gaining administrator access on infected computers. The virus is so hazardous that it started affecting the networks of the French Navy; the U.K. Ministry of Defense; the Manchester City Council and police department.
ILOVEYOU (2000):
Also known as “Love Letter” virus, one of the trickiest computer malware, infected more than 15 million computers worldwide. The virus infiltrated email accounts and sent messagesentitled “I Love You” with an attached file to it. Due to this lovable message, people attracted andinstalled the file and what they got was a code that started sending messages to the first 50 email addressessaved in a Microsoft Outlookand deleted important PC files.
MyDoom (2004):
As indicated by its name, MyDoom was fastest e-mail virus causing $38 billion in damage.Its growth rate was much faster than any other virus discovered so far and it attacked PC with Microsoft Windows via user’s email accounts. The virus infiltrated email accounts and sent messages entitled “Mail Delivery System,” “Test,” “Mail Transaction Failed” or “Error.” When a victim opened the email, the worm infected the computer’s shared folders and sent item.
Use these tips to avoid Computer Viruses:
Open emails with caution
Open only those emails that you expect. If you get an unexpected message with an attachment from a person you know, call the sender first to confirm the authenticity of the correspondence.
Update antivirus frequently
To prevent a malicious interference, download the security updates for your computer and anti-virus software as they become available. Set up the programs on your computer so they check for and install updates on a daily basis and schedule automatic virus scans.
Don’t surf unknown websites
To prevent an attack, set the safety measures on your browser, and stay away from sites that seem shiny or make promises that are too good to be true, quickly close the window if your browser pops up a warning about a potentially dangerous site. And never agree to a virus scan from pop up window.
By following the tips mentioned here, you can prevent a malicious attack and keep your data and PC completely protected and error free. Still if your PC is infected by virus best thing to do is to contact your IT service provider or computer technician to fix the issue immediately.