Utilities Software

How viruses are created

Until a few years ago, creating a virus required knowledge of a computer programming language. Today anyone with even a little programming knowledge can create a virus. Usually, though, misguided individuals who want to cause widespread, random damage to computers create viruses.

In the typical scenario, it is an individual, working alone, who writes a virus program and then introduces it onto a single computer, network server, or the Internet. Why? Ego, revenge, sabotage, and basic disgruntlement have all been cited as motivations. Recently, do-it-yourself "virus kits" have been popping up on the Internet, and macro scripts are becoming both easier to learn and more powerful, putting the capacity to engineer viruses in the hands of nearly everyone. In other words, no single, likely profile exists by which virus writers can be described or understood.

So whatever the reason one may have for writing a virus, the important thing is to make certain your company is not victimized, that data you are responsible for is safe, and that precious time is not wasted hunting down (and cleaning up after) viruses.

Accessing the Trend Micro Virus Encyclopedia

PC-cillin includes access to the online Trend Micro virus encyclopedia, organized by name and virus type. Use it to find out about tens of thousands of individual viruses, including the typical symptoms of a given virus, its infection procedure, and the damage routine.

With the growing prevalence of Macro viruses, we have bolstered the number of Macro virus descriptions included in the encyclopedia to well over 2000.

Of course, PC-cillin, which uses Trend’s award-winning, 32-bit, multi-threading scan engine, is capable of detecting all viruses that are known to be in circulation, plus the many thousands more that exist as "proof of concept" only in researcher's virus labs and on hacker's computers.

To access the Trend Micro Virus Encyclopedia, on the PC-cillin menu bar, click Security Info > Encyclopedia..

Viewing the Trend Micro Virus list

The Virus Information Center contains a list of the Real-time top ten viruses. In addition, you can view updated Security Alerts and Virus Advisories.

To access the Trend Micro Virus list, on the PC-cillin menu bar click, Security Info > Virus List.

Contacting Technical Support

Trend Micro provides technical support, virus pattern downloads, and program updates for one year to all registered users, after which you must purchase renewal maintenance.

Send an email to our highly trained technical support staff or visit our Web site to receive technical support.

62