University CIS Assignment: Exploring Computer Virus and Spam Attacks

This assignment delves into the realm of computer viruses and spam, analyzing various recent attacks and their impacts. It begins by defining a virus and then explores specific examples such as WannaCry, the Facebook messenger virus, and crypto-malware attacks. The assignment details the damage caused by these attacks, including data breaches, system crashes, and financial impacts, highlighting the vulnerabilities of online sites, social media, and cloud-computing servers. It then examines crypto-malware, its methods of operation, and the challenges in detection and prevention, emphasizing the need for advanced security measures like well-developed neural networks and endpoint cryptography. The assignment concludes by mentioning the spread of crypto-malware through social engineering and user interaction, such as malicious emails, and referencing several sources.

Running head: COMPUTER INFORMATION SYSTEM
VIRUS AND SPAM
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

Researching Virus Attacks
Virus is a type of software that replicates itself in the computer program to destroy the computer
system. The affected area are said to be the infected area of the computer. The virus code are written by
using the social engineering description and destroys all the data of the system. Majority of the viruses
attacks the system running the Microsoft Windows (Mousavi, Rad and Wah 2016). There are five types
of recent virus attacks faced by the society:
WannaCry: Wannacry attack was a worldwide attack took place at mid 2017. This targeted MS
Windows operating system and encrypted data in the system. The attackers demanded for ransom
payment for keeping the information secret (Brewer 2016).
Facebook messenger virus: This virus has affected the data of the users in Facebook. The attackers
operate this, they send a YouTube link in the messenger and this appears as any friend has sent the link.
As soon as the user opens the link, the page redirects the users to a phishing site. This leads to data
breaching.
The damages that are caused with these attacks are, the data of the users are breached. Even
sometimes, the viruses lead to crash the system. This destroys the whole data of the users and sometimes
led to breaching of the important and confidential data. This harms the users largely. The most vulnerable
sites are the online sites, social media and the cloud-computing servers. Windows also possess a great
threat from these viruses. The computer system which are based on Macs and Linux are susceptible of
this threats.

Crypto-malware Attacks
Crypto malware attacks are used to take over the computer resources and are used for crypto
currency withdrawal without the permission from the users. The main motive of every crypto malware is
to mine the crypto currency. This attack becomes successful as the detection becomes difficult at the
previous stage for the companies (Khan and Hasan 2017). The attackers seeks for the site that will
directly lead to the withdrawal of crypto currency. The damage made can affect the software and the
organization may face financial impacts once the crypto malware software affects the cloud
infrastructure. This can lead to lowering the performance of the machines.
For stopping the crypto malware attack, the organization needs a well developed neutral network.
Th installation of antivirus software also helps to avoid the problem and safeguards the system from any
type of malware attacks. This has a very big and unusual message length. The cryptography needs to be
detected at the end points. Once the crypto malware is detected in the end points, the problem can be
solved. For this, the end point needs to be fully developed (Martin et al. 2018). The crypto malware is
spread all over the systems with the help of social engineering and with the help of user interaction. The
case when the users open malicious emails and the attachments sent with the email. Clicking the link will
directly load this malware and the system will fetch all the crypto currency available in the system.

Reference
Brewer, R., 2016. Ransomware attacks: detection, prevention and cure. Network Security, 2016(9), pp.5-
9.
Khan, R. and Hasan, M., 2017. NETWORK THREATS, ATTACKS AND SECURITY MEASURES: A
REVIEW. International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science, 8(8).
Martin, G., Ghafur, S., Kinross, J., Hankin, C. and Darzi, A., 2018. WannaCry—a year on.
Mousavi, S.A., Rad, B.B. and Wah, T.Y., 2016, September. Systems in Danger: A Short Review on
Metamorphic Computer Viruses. In The Third International Conference on Digital Security and
Forensics (DigitalSec2016) (p. 20).