Summary: Could the mass media hype
about computer viruses actually make the problem worse?
If you believe what you hear in the
media, there are an awful lot of viruses going around. No, I'm not talking
about the make-you-sick kind of virus, though they get plenty of airtime, too.
I'm talking about the kind of virus that enters via your internet connection
rather than your nasal passages.
What the mainstream media often
don't tell you--at least, in most radio and television newscasts and in the
crucial headlines and opening paragraphs of newspaper articles-- is that many
of these "viruses" are not viruses at all.
What Computer Viruses Really Are
The main reason the mainstream
media always are in alarm over viruses is that they tend to call any malicious
computer program a virus. In reality, there are at least eleven distinct types
of malicious software, or malware, commonly affecting computers today. The most
common of these are worms, Trojans, and spyware.
So, what's the difference between
computer viruses and the other types of malware? The difference is that
computer viruses are just about the only ones that regularly shut down
computers and cause other obvious damage. The most common of the other kinds of
malware--worms, Trojans, and spyware--are usually only detectable with a
special scan.
The Real Danger of Computer Viruses
If the other types of malware are
so unobtrusive that they can only be detected with a special scan, then what's
to worry about? For starters, these programs are called malicious for a reason:
they are designed to cause some kind of damage, if not to your computer, then
to someone else's.
Worms are most famously used to
damage, destroy, or disrupt other computer networks than the one on which the
host computer is located. For instance, worms have been used by website owners
to shut down rival websites by sending overwhelming numbers of requests to the
computer that hosts that website. Worms have also been used to send out viruses
to other computers, often without infecting the host machine--after all, what
would it benefit the worm to shut down its host computer?
Trojans, in turn, are often used to
insert worms and other malware on your computer, even if the Trojan itself does
no damage.
But even if you don't care what
happens to anyone else, you should still be concerned about one kind of
malware: spyware, a kind of malware that, true to its name, collects data from
your computer and sends it back to a remote host.
Most spyware is only interested in
monitoring your internet usage so it can tell other programs, called adware,
what advertising to popup on your computer. However, there are criminal spyware
programs that steal financial data, or perform a thorough identity theft. Don't
think you have personal or financial data on your computer? Some spyware
programs contain a keylogger, which is a program that copies whatever you type,
usually in order to snatch passwords. Even if you keep no financial information
on your computer, if you ever buy anything over the web, the keylogger would
allow its owner to buy stuff using the same information you typed in to buy stuff
yourself.
Why Blame the Media?
Given the danger of all these
different types of malware, isn't it a good thing that the mass media are
becoming hysterical about it? And can't they be forgiven the sloppy reporting
of calling Trojans, worms, spyware, and other malware "viruses"?
No, no, no.
This is a classic case of bad
reporting doing more damage than no reporting at all. In this case, the damage
bad reporting has done is to promote a common myth that goes something like
this: "The only malicious software is a virus. Viruses damage your
computer. Therefore, if my computer is working OK, my computer has no malicious
software. I only need to scan my computer for problems when there is a sign of
problems."
Thanks to this myth, many people
complacently let their antivirus software go months out of date, not wanting to
be bothered with scheduling an automatic update. Just as bad, many people don't
have any extra software to combat the other types of malware that may not be
covered by antivirus software.
In fact, it's not uncommon for people
who have found malware on their computers after a scan to say, "but I
never had malware on my computer before!" But how would they have known if
they had never scanned!
Until the biggest mainstream
media--and especially television--start educating the public about the need to
have their computers automatically scanned at least daily, the world will
continue to have major, drawn-out problems with malware that could have been
wiped out as soon as soon as the anti-malware software makers discovered it.
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