Types of viruses

Types of viruses

Like viruses that infect living beings, computer viruses infect your computer. They are software, and are often attached to other software or documents you might receive. When you run the virus's software or the file the virus has infected, the virus can infect your computer's software.

There are many types of viruses and terms for them, but we'll use the general term 'virus' to make things easy.

Types of viruses :-

The different types of viruses are as follows-

1) Boot Sector Virus :- Boot sector viruses infect either the master boot record of the hard disk or the floppy drive. The boot record program responsible for the booting of operating system is replaced by the virus. The virus either copies the master boot program to another part of the hard disk or overwrites it. They infect a computer when it boots up or when it accesses the infected floppy disk in the floppy drive. i.e. Once a system is infected with a boot-sector virus, any non-write-protected disk accessed by this system will become infected.
Examples of boot- sector viruses are Michelangelo and Stoned.

2) File or Program Viruses :- Some files/programs, when executed, load the virus in the memory and perform predefined functions to infect the system. They infect program files with extensions like .EXE, .COM, .BIN, .DRV and .SYS
Some common file viruses are Sunday, Cascade.

3) Multipartite Viruses :- A multipartite virus is a computer virus that infects multiple different target platforms, and remains recursively infective in each target. It attempts to attack both the boot sector and the executable, or programs, files at the same time. When the virus attaches to the boot sector, it will in turn affect the system’s files, and when the virus attaches to the files, it will in turn infect the boot sector.This type of virus can re-infect a system over and over again if all parts of the virus are not eradicated.Ghostball was the first multipartite virus, discovered by Fridrik Skulason in October 1989.
Other examples are Invader, Flip, etc.

4) Stealth Viruses :- These viruses are stealthy in nature means it uses various methods for hiding themselves to void detection. They sometimes remove themselves from the memory temporarily to avoid detection by antivirus. They are somewhat difficult to detect. When an antivirus program tries to detect the virus, the stealth virus feeds the antivirus program a clean image of the file or boot sector.

5) Polymorphic Viruses :- Polymorphic viruses have the ability to mutate implying that they change the viral code known as the signature each time they spread or infect. Thus an antivirus program which is scanning for specific virus codes unable to detect it's presense.

6) Macro Viruses :- A macro virus is a computer virus that "infects" a Microsoft Word or similar application and causes a sequence of actions to be performed automatically when the application is started or something else triggers it. Macro viruses tend to be surprising but relatively harmless.A macro virus is often spread as an e-mail virus. Well-known examples are

7) Concept Virus and Melissa Worm.:Computer Virus is a kind of malicious software written intentionally to enter a computer without the user’s permission or knowledge, with an ability to replicate itself, thus continuing to spread. Some viruses do little but replicate others can cause severe harm or adversely effect program and performance of the system. A virus should never be assumed harmless and left on a system. Most common types of viruses are mentioned below:

8) Resident Viruses:This type of virus is a permanent which dwells in the RAM memory. From there it can overcome and interrupt all of the operations executed by the system: corrupting files and programs that are opened, closed, copied, renamed etc.
Examples include: Randex, CMJ, Meve, and MrKlunky.

10) Direct Action Viruses:The main purpose of this virus is to replicate and take action when it is executed. When a specific condition is met, the virus will go into action and infect files in the directory or folder that it is in and in directories that are specified in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file PATH. This batch file is always located in the root directory of the hard disk and carries out certain operations when the computer is booted.

11) Overwrite Viruses:Virus of this kind is characterized by the fact that it deletes the information contained in the files that it infects, rendering them partially or totally useless once they have been infected.The only way to clean a file infected by an overwrite virus is to delete the file completely, thus losing the original content.
Examples of this virus include: Way, Trj.Reboot, Trivial.88.D.

12) Boot Virus:This type of virus affects the boot sector of a floppy or hard disk. This is a crucial part of a disk, in which information on the disk itself is stored together with a program that makes it possible to boot (start) the computer from the disk.
Examples of boot viruses include: Polyboot.B, AntiEXE.

13) Macro Virus:Macro viruses infect files that are created using certain applications or programs that contain macros. These mini-programs make it possible to automate series of operations so that they are performed as a single action, thereby saving the user from having to carry them out one by one.
Examples of macro viruses: Relax, Melissa.A, Bablas, O97M/Y2K.

14) Directory Virus:Directory viruses change the paths that indicate the location of a file. By executing a program (file with the extension .EXE or .COM) which has been infected by a virus, you are unknowingly running the virus program, while the original file and program have been previously moved by the virus.Once infected it becomes impossible to locate the original files.

15) Polymorphic Virus:Polymorphic viruses encrypt or encode themselves in a different way (using different algorithms and encryption keys) every time they infect a system.This makes it impossible for anti-viruses to find them using string or signature searches (because they are different in each encryption) and also enables them to create a large number of copies of themselves.
Examples include: Elkern, Marburg, Satan Bug, and Tuareg.

16) File Infectors:This type of virus infects programs or executable files (files with an .EXE or .COM extension). When one of these programs is run, directly or indirectly, the virus is activated, producing the damaging effects it is programmed to carry out. The majority of existing viruses belong to this category, and can be classified depending on the actions that they carry out.

17) Companion Viruses:Companion viruses can be considered file infector viruses like resident or direct action types. They are known as companion viruses because once they get into the system they "accompany" the other files that already exist. In other words, in order to carry out their infection routines, companion viruses can wait in memory until a program is run (resident viruses) or act immediately by making copies of themselves (direct action viruses).Some examples include: Stator, Asimov.1539, and Terrax.1069

18) FAT Virus:The file allocation table or FAT is the part of a disk used to connect information and is a vital part of the normal functioning of the computer.This type of virus attack can be especially dangerous, by preventing access to certain sections of the disk where important files are stored. Damage caused can result in information losses from individual files or even entire directories.

19) Worms :A worm is a program very similar to a virus; it has the ability to self-replicate, and can lead to negative effects on your system and most importantly they are detected and eliminated by antiviruses.
Examples of worms include: PSWBugbear.B, Lovgate.F, Trile.C, Sobig.D, Mapson.

20) Trojans or Trojan Horses:Another unsavory breed of malicious code are Trojans or Trojan horses, which unlike viruses do not reproduce by infecting other files, nor do they self-replicate like worms.

21) Logic Bombs:They are not considered viruses because they do not replicate. They are not even programs in their own right but rather camouflaged segments of other programs.Their objective is to destroy data on the computer once certain conditions have been met. Logic bombs go undetected until launched, and the results can be destructive.
Install a good antivirus to avoid infections and effective removal.I have posted a topic on antivirus in the blog.