{"id":393,"date":"2006-11-08T20:07:43","date_gmt":"2006-11-08T20:07:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.darknet.org.uk\/2006\/11\/the-art-of-virology-00h\/"},"modified":"2015-09-09T19:40:31","modified_gmt":"2015-09-09T11:40:31","slug":"the-art-of-virology-00h","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.darknet.org.uk\/2006\/11\/the-art-of-virology-00h\/","title":{"rendered":"the Art of Virology 00h"},"content":{"rendered":"

[ad]<\/p>\n

This is the first part (of many others to come) consisting of basic a introduction to different viruses, some terminology and other aspects required before starting to understand or write viruses.<\/p>\n

Definition<\/strong><\/h2>\n

A virus is (taken from Windows XP’s Help And Support Center<\/em>): <\/p>\n

\nA program that attempts to spread from computer to computer and either cause damage (by erasing or corrupting data) or annoy users (by printing messages or altering what is displayed on the screen).\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But wait a second… to this definition is not correct from some points of view; for example we could place in this category also programs that only reproduce, parasite different files, and do not do damage to users data, or annoy them, except maybe for the disk usage…
\nBut you should not confuse viruses with John von Neumann’s self-reproducing mathematical automata. Google for more information about it because it’s not part of our subject, or maybe I don’t want to get scientific and speak about it<\/p>\n

What programs are connected to virology?<\/h3>\n

The abstract definition of viruses has become more abstract with the help of know-it-all antivirus programmers, which for some money integrated in there software Trojan \/ hoaxes \/ malware \/ backdoor removers, so anytime a antivirus product pops up with a notification of such a program being found on a computer, a normal user doesn’t get interested in this aspect and it’s concerned of being infected with a virus (disinterest, what else)!
\nBut what is the difference between these programs? I’ll make for you a little list with some personal definitions ok so let’s start: <\/p>\n

adware<\/strong> – belong to the malware category, besides spyware; it’s not a virus, it’s and application normally shifted alongside with other programs, it’s main role being to pop up, while your connected to the web, some ads. most of the time they get installed because you do not read the files accompanying different software which are free or get free doing some ads for big\/medium\/small companies. <\/p>\n

spyware<\/strong> – these are the fierce animals of malware, they spy on you, but not the subtle way James Bond does, they get installed through different exploits and surveillance the websites you visit, personal information, etc. and send them to different firms (or government, NSA, FBI, CIA ?) <\/p>\n

Trojan<\/strong> – Trojans are programs written for specific tasks, in this list we could include flooders (DoS), hidden proxy server, virus droppers, also for different purposes that antivirus vendors think that could do harm to other people’s data.<\/p>\n

backdoor<\/strong> – a backdoor is a program which if it’s not released by an underground website could be called “\u02dcRemote Administration Tool’, so it’s a tool that let’s you control, or do specific tasks on other computers; famous backdoor\/Trojan backdoor clients (and server) are: BO2K, SubSeven, R3C, Insane Network. <\/p>\n

virus<\/strong> – this one belongs to our subject, of course could it is well divided in more types of viruses, classified by language used to create them, how they infect, and what they infect.<\/p>\n

worm<\/strong> – these programs\/scripts also belong to virology (think so?!) because they also have the basic concept of viruses (parasites, worms. ring a bell?) to spread, beautifully, widely, and all other fancy adjectives you can find.<\/p>\n

Viral History<\/h2>\n

The “first” virus<\/strong>
\nSometime in the early 1970s, the Creeper virus was detected on ARPANET a US military computer network which was the forerunner of the modern Internet. Written for the then-popular Tenex operating system, this program was able to gain access independently through a modem and copy itself to the remote system. Infected systems displayed the message, ‘I’M THE CREEPER : CATCH ME IF YOU CAN.’
\nShortly thereafter, the Reaper program was anonymously created to delete Creeper. Reaper was a virus: it spread to networked machines and if it located a Creeper virus, Reaper would delete it. Even the participants are unable to say whether Reaper was a response to Creeper, or if it was created by the same person or persons who created Creeper in order to correct their mistake.
\nAnd now a list of the first viruses “to be the first”:
\n1981 :: Elk Cloner – Boot sector virus<\/p>\n

1986 :: Brain – Stealth file virus
\n1986 :: Virdem – DOS COM file infector<\/p>\n

1987 :: Suriv-1 – DOS COM real time file infector
\n1987 :: Suriv-2 – DOS EXE file infector
\n1987 :: Suriv-3 – DOS COM & EXE file infector
\n1987 :: Cascade – Encrypted Virus
\n1987 :: Christmas Tree Worm – Worm (Internet Virus) <\/p>\n

1988 :: Morris Worm – Worm which used exploits against Unix system to spread<\/p>\n

1990 :: the Chameleon family – A polymorphic virus family<\/p>\n

1991 :: Tequila – A polymorphic boot virus
\n1991 :: Dir II – The one and only virus to use link-technology <\/p>\n

1992 :: Win.Vir_1_4 -Windows virus<\/p>\n

1994 :: Shifter -OBJ file infector
\n1994 :: ScrVir-a – C and Pascal source code files infector<\/p>\n

1995 :: Winstart -BAT file virus<\/p>\n

1996 :: Boza – Windows 95 virus
\n1996 :: OS2.AEP – OS\/2 EXE file infector
\n1996 :: Laroux – Excel virus<\/p>\n

1997 :: Linux Bliss – Linux virus
\n1997 :: ShareFun – Macro virus spreading through mail, with MS Mail
\n1997 :: Homer – Worm that used FTP to propagate
\n1997 :: Win95.Mad – Self-encrypting Windows 95 virus<\/p>\n

1998 :: Win95.HPS and Win95.Marburg – Windows polymorphic viruses
\n1998 :: Cross – Multi-platform virus, infected MS Access and Word files
\n1998 :: Triplicate (Tristate) – MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint file infector
\n1998 :: Red Team – EXE infector virus, spreading through Eudora
\n1998 :: Java.StrangeBrew – Java web application virus<\/p>\n

1999 :: Happy99 (Ska) – Modern-Day Worm
\n1999 :: SK; – HLP file infector virus
\n1999 :: Melissa – Word Macro virus incorporating Internet Worm functionality
\n1999 :: Gala – Corel Draw, Photo-Paint, Ventura file infector
\n1999 :: Bubbleboy and KakWorm – Worms spreading through IE vulnerabilities
\n1999 :: Babylonia – Worm with remote self-rejuvenation (don’t get scared by the term, it means that it automatically downloaded new versions of it) <\/p>\n

2000 :: Inta – Windows 2000 file infector
\n2000 :: LoveLetter – Script Virus to break Guiness Book record
\n2000 :: Star – AutoCAD package virus
\n2000 :: Jer – Internet Worm using social engineering and mass marketing to get user to let them be infected
\n2000 :: Liberty – PalmOS virus
\n2000 :: Stream – ADS and NTFS filesystem viruses
\n2000 :: Fable – PIF file infector
\n2000 :: Pirus – PHP Script virus
\n2000 :: Hybris – Worm with self-rejuvenating based on a 128-bit RSA key<\/p>\n

2001 :: Mandragore – Gnutella file-sharing Internet Worm<\/p>\n

2002 :: LFM and Donut – .NET Framework viruses
\n2002 :: Spida – SQL Server worm
\n2002 :: Benjamin – Kazza file-sharing network worm<\/p>\n

2003 :: Slammer – Fileless Worm with flash-worm capabilities<\/p>\n

Wow. that’s quite a long list, don’t you think? And it isn’t all; if you want to see it all, then go to viruslist<\/a> and read all the history of malware, and then surely you can say that this list is even to small = )<\/p>\n

Classification<\/h2>\n

I think that we should classify viruses so we will now better about which kind of viruses we speak. you’d probably seen in the list different classifications, but it’s time we clearly point them out (of course this is my personal classification, agree with it or not, it’s your choice):<\/p>\n

By what they infect<\/strong><\/p>\n