Gaming Quetions about computer viruses

[Zenith94]

Ok I have a couple questions about computer viruses:

1. How does a computer virus enter the computers memory?

Now to my understanding it is download to the RAM's temperary internet files memory cache from the internet and then transfered to the hard drive where it grows into full effect before altering the computer. Also you can get virurs from emails.

2. Why would someone download a virus program?

Just because the virus is disguised as something else such as spyware. The user does not think it is a virus untill they download it.

 

[playallday]

1. The way it enters really depends on the exploit.

2. Because most computer users are mega n00bs.

 

[Zenith94]

Well what is the most popular way for a virus to get into computer?

 

[nitrostemp]

limewire

 

[King Zargo]

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[Zenith94]

limewire

false

also I am trying to ask the process or a virus. like it goes from:

internet >>> ram >>> hard drive >>> windows files

how exactly does it spread?

 

[nitrostemp]

you download it off the net, then you run it from your hard drive then it is in ram followed by windows files

 

[weiff]

Currently I would say either email attachment or encoded in a media file/online game. There was a nasty one going for a while that was getting into machine through FaceBrick. If you played any of the games on there you could catch it... cleaned it off a bunch of machines. The person above who mentioned exploits has it correct. Depending on how the app gets on the machine determines some of its nature too.

 

[Rydian]

Advertisements in web pages are the current biggest source of general infections, consisting mostly of Rogue programs. As for actual viruses that just reproduce and spread by infecting files, they're actually pretty rare nowadays, "virus" is now mostly a catch-all term for computer infection.

Internet (source) - RAM (files received) - ???

Like you were told, it depends on the virus. There is no single general way, but the most popular way would be an exploit in the browser to make it save data it shouldn't be saving to a place it shouldn't be saving it and then executing it when it shouldn't be.

Internet (source) - RAM (files received) - Harddrive (files saved) - RAM (files executed, so they have to be loaded into memory like any program) - ??? (whatever the fuck the infection does, it has free reign).

EDIT: Tue above is for rogue programs and such that consist of browser exploits, for actual viruses and rogue programs that pop up an ad and trick the user into downloading and running them, it'd be the same process, just the user is choosing to save the file and then run it instead of the browser being tricked into doing it itself.

 

[Zenith94]

Thank you all for the info, it helped a lot. This is acuatly for a biology project.

 

[King Zargo]

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[juggernaut911]

Is the biology part just a sickness metaphor with computers? I like those!

 

[Rydian]

Are they compairing people with computers now? Is the cpu or the hdd the brains?

The CPU is the conscious mind, BIOS is unconscious mind, HDD is long-term memory, RAM is short-term memory.

 

[jeffyTheHomebrewer]

The CPU is the conscious mind, BIOS is unconscious mind, HDD is long-term memory, RAM is short-term memory.

cool