MINI PROJECT

REPORT
Detection and prevention of
computer virus

Submitted by
Sajin.Sasikumar
Roll no: 14042
S4BBM

INTRODECTION

1.1 INTRODECTION ABOUT THE TOPIC

This project report is for identifying what the
computer virus are, there type, how it affects the
computer and finally finding the best methods for
the prevention of computer virus from affecting
our computer.
As the usage of computers and creation of
computer viruses are increasing all over the
world, every computer user began to search
about the computer viruses. But there are other
various kinds of software like worms and Trojans
that can do same harm to the activities of the
computer other than the virus. Although they are
different from computer virus, the computer
users are used to call other types of malicious
software as virus.

1.2 LITERATURE REVIEW

There are plenty of articles available related to
computer virus, its importance and modern
viruses which are infecting hundreds of
computers daily.
Some of them are listed below
By Eric Gwinn, Tribune Newspapers
This time of year, you hear plenty warnings about email scams
and phishing attacks. You know not to reply to an email with
your Social Security number, and you don't open email
attachments from strangers. You've learned to keep your
firewall software turned on, and you've figured out other ways
to keep malware out of your computer.
It can happen to even the savviest surfers. Malware makers
have determined how to bamboozle web browsers and lay land
mines on innocent-looking web sites, and occasionally these
tricks can figuratively blow up your computer and make your
life a mess.

By David C. Rudd
A computer virus is a rogue computer program, usually planted,
which often does its damage by copying itself endlessly and
destroying stored data in the process. In this case, the itinerant
viruses are believed to have spread as personal computer users
shared software.

1.3 PROBLEM DEFINITION

In this modern world most of the people are using
computers for their day to day activities. Every day more
than 200 malware are created by virus creators. So it is
important to have knowledge of computer viruses and
protecting computers from these viruses. Virus related
issues are increasing day by day as new types of viruses
are created by people intends to destroy or to stole
personal information. It is a major problem which
affects both common people as well as higher
authorities.
Virus detection and other related issues are a common
topic in news papers. So it is very important to have a
clear idea about computer virus and methods to prevent
it from affecting the computer.

1.4 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

Primary
Primary objective is to find out the methods and
techniques which can be applied by common people for
preventing the attack of viruses. Everyone needs to
understand the preventive methods and thereby saving
themselves from virus attacks.

Secondary
Secondary objective to make the people aware of the
importance computer virus and affects in this cyber
world. People need have enough knowledge about when
and how these types of programs affect his own
computer.

1.5 REASON FOR SELECTION OF THE TOPIC

Having enough knowledge about computer virus and
protection from it is very important in present world.
Today 70% of the people use computer and internet for
their day to day activities. As the users increases more
and more virus programs are also detected and affected
in computers. It not only harmful to your computer but
also detects and transfer your personal data without
your knowledge.
So having an idea about this field is important and may
helps you and your computer from future virus attacks.

1.6 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

Computer virus is major issue and it affects the whole
world. Computers which are connected to the internet
have more chance to get attacked by viruses. So the
information will be available every ware.
This project report helps to understand how important
virus protection is and explains some methods to
prevent viruses from attacking your computer. This
small report can provide some methods to detect viruses
and related software running in your computer and
helps in preventing your computer from data lose or
system failure.
Studies show that computer virus and hacking issues are
increasing now a day and most of it get effected to
common people. This report may helps in getting some
knowledge about this kind of problems and preparing
for defending themselves from computer attacks.

1.7 METHODOLOGY
Data collection
Primary data is collected through questionnaire
conducted among students in my class and family
members.
Secondary data is collected from different web sites and
from magazines and news papers.

Sample size
Questionnaire is given to almost 25 students for data
collection.

Tools for data analysis

o Tools used for data analysis are tables and graphs.
o Pie chart is used to understand the percentage of
respondents.
o Samples are divided based on gender for easy data
analysis.
Tools for data collection
Tools used for data collection are;
o Questionnaire
o Websites

1.8 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

Data can be only collected from people who have access
to computer and have any knowledge about the
functioning of the computer.
Accurate information may not get from people who dont
have any prior understanding about computer virus.

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1.9 CHAPTERISATION

Chapter
no.
1

Name of the chapter

Introduction

Page
no.
2

Theoretical perspective

12

Analysis and interpretation

14

findings

23

Suggestions

27

conclusion

11

THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE

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o A compute

virus is

malware that,

when

executed, replicates by reproducing itself or infecting

other programs by modifying them. Infecting computer
programs can include as well, data files, or the boot
sector of the hard drive. When this replication succeeds,
the affected areas are then said to be "infected"

o A program that can infect other programs by

modifying them to include a possibly evolved copy
of itself

o Computer viruses are a large class of malicious

codes that can spread among computers and
perform detrimental operations
o We define a computer 'virus' as a program that can
'infect' other programs by modifying them to
include a possibly evolved copy of it. With the
infection property, a virus can spread throughout a
computer system or network using the
authorizations of every user using it to infect their
programs. Every program that gets infected may
also act as a virus and thus the infection grows.

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4
Analysis and interpretation

14

Data collection
How many years you have been using personal
computer?
gender
Male
Female
Total

Below 1
year
4
2
6

Between
1-2 years
5
3
8

Above 2
years
6
5
11

percentage
60
40
100

respondents
male

female

40%
60%

Interpretation
From the above table shows that 60% of the male
population have already using computers and 40% of
female population started using computer.

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 Did you have seen any program running without

your permission in the computer?
gender

yes

no

Male

Female

Total

13

percentage

65%

35%

respondents
yes

no

35%

65%

Interpretation
65% of total male and female population has seen
unwanted programs running in their computer.35% of

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them have never detected any unfamiliar programs

running in the computer.

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 How many times you have been affected by virus in

your computer?
Gender

Below 5

Above 5

Male

Female

Total

14

9
8
7
6
5

male

female

3
2
1
0
below 5

above 5

Interpretation
14 out of 20 people got affected by virus in their
computer almost five times where 6 of them get affected
by virus more than five times

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 Did your computer stopped working any time after

getting effected by virus?

Gender

Yes

No

Male
Female
Total

4
2
6

9
4
13

10
9
8
7
6
male

female

4
3
2
1
0
yes

no

Interpretation
6 out of 20 shown that their computer has stopped
working after getting effected by computer virus.

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 Have you lost any personal data from your

computer without your knowledge?

Gender

Yes

No

Male
Female
Total

7
5
12

5
3
8

8
7
6
5
male

female
3
2
1
0
yws

no

Interpretation
More than 12 people lost their personal data
because of computer virus

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 Have you seen any unknown emails in your email

account?

Gender

Yes

No

Male
Female
Percentage

8
7
75%

3
2
25%

respondents
yes

no

25%

75%

Interpretation
From the above data it is clear that 75% of the people
have seen unknown emails where 25% hasnt seen
anything like that.

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 Have you logged in or installed any applications

which offer money or any other gifts?
Gender
Male
Female
Total

Yes
7
5
12

No
6
2
8

respondents
yes

no

21%

79%

Interpretation
79% of the people sometimes installed or logged
into the unknown application. They have seen
offering rewards if for installing unauthorized
application.

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 Did you have asked to enter banking details for

unknown reasons?
Gender
Male
Female
Total

Yes
7
5
12

No
6
2
8

respondents

45%
55%

Interpretation
55% of the people have asked to enter banking
details for unknown reasons.

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4
FINDINGS

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Computer virus generated problems are increasing

day by day. According to my findings about 70% of
have affected by computer virus and other related
issues. About 40% of the people have not
considered it as a serious issue. Some of them are
not aware of the massive problems created by
computer virus.
News related to computer virus and its affects can
be seen every day. It not only affects common
people but also organizations and governments as
well.
New computer viruses are detected by crackers
every day which can become harmful to every
personal computer. Some of them are listed below;
GEORGE DUBYA BUSH VIRUS: Causes your computer to keep looking for
viruses of mass destruction.
ANITA HILL VIRUS: Lies dormant for ten years.
OPRAH WINFREY VIRUS: Your 200MB hard drive suddenly shrinks to 80MB,
and then slowly expands back to 200MB.
AT&T VIRUS: Every three minutes it tells you what great service you are getting.
MCI VIRUS: Every three minutes it reminds you that you're paying too much for
the AT&T virus.
PAUL TSONGAS VIRUS: Pops up on December 25 and says, "I'm not Santa
Claus."
JERRY BROWN VIRUS: Blanks your screen and begins flashing an 800 number.

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AL GORE VIRUS: Causes your computer to keep counting, recounting,

recounting ... ad nauseam.
MADONNA VIRUS: If your computer gets this virus, lock up your dog!
PAUL REVERE VIRUS: This revolutionary virus does not horse around. It warns
you of impending hard disk attack---once if by LAN, twice if by C :>.
BILL CLINTON VIRUS: This virus mutates from region to region and we're not
exactly sure what it does.

Types of computer virus

A computer virus is a program designed to harm or
cause harm on an infected computer. Its spreads
through e-mail attachments, portable devices, websites
containing malicious scripts and file downloads. A
computer virus attaches itself to the host files and
always activate whenever you open the infected files.
The virus can replicate itself and then infect the other
files on your computer causing more damage.
Below is a list of different types of computer viruses and
what they do.

Macro Viruses
These viruses infect the files created using some applications
or programs that contain macros such as doc, peps, xls and
mdb. They automatically infect the files with macros and also
templates and documents that are contained in the file. They
hide in documents shared through e-mail and networks.

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Memory Resident Viruses

They usually fix themselves inside the computer memory.

They get activated every time the OS runs and end up
infecting other opened files. They hide in RAM.
Overwrite Viruses

These types of viruses delete any information in a file they

infect, leaving them partially or completely useless once they
are infected. Once in the computer, they replace all the file
content but the file size doesnt change.
Direct Action Viruses

These viruses mainly replicate or take action once they

are executed. When a certain condition is met, the
viruses will act by infecting the files in the directory or
the folder specified in the AUTOEXEC.BAT. The viruses
are generally found in the hard disks root directory, but
they keep on changing location.

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5
SUGGESTIONS

28

How to detect computer virus

Simple signature scanning
A virus signature is a sequence of bytes that may be
found in a virus program code but unlikely to be
found anywhere else. Extracting a virus signature
is a skillful job. When a new virus appears, a human
expert has to analyze the infected file and find the
pattern or signature of that virus.
Generic signature scanning
A generic signature uses the pattern found in a
family of viruses. This is a quicker method to detect
all the viruses belonging to the same family. This
method works, as most viruses are not originally
programmed rather created by modifying the code
of previously existing viruses. In such cases a lot of
similarities are found between the main virus and
its variants. The generic signatures use various
wildcards to detect all the variants of a virus family.
This method is also capable of detecting new and
future viruses of the same family. A generic
signature scanning is also called as heuristic
signature scanning.

Integrity checking

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An integrity checker generally keeps a small

checksum or hash value or snapshot or
fingerprint of uninfected programs (such as,
executables, boot records etc.) in a secured location
in the beginning when they are presumably
uninfected. During integrity checking, the integrity
checker recalculates the new fingerprints of the
programs and compares those with their original
fingerprints. If both the fingerprints match then the
files are assumed to be unmodified and hence
deemed to be uninfected. If they dont match then
the anti-virus program has to use further
intelligence to determine whether the modification
is virus-like or user-induced.
Heuristic scanning
A heuristic anti-virus program examines a target
program (executable file, boot record, or possibly
document file with a macro) and analyzes its
program code to determine if the code appears
virus-like. In other words, a heuristic engine detects
the commands within a program that are not found
in typical application programs, such as, the
replication mechanism of a virus, the distribution
routine of a worm or the payload of a Trojan. If the
target program's code appears virus-like, then
scanner reports a possible infection

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How to prevent computer virus

o Never open unsolicited email attachments, even if
they appear to come from friends or colleagues.
o Always save the file attachment to disk - do not open
it immediately - and scan the file using your
installed Virus checker.
o Ensure that you are running the latest virus
protection

Anti Virus Protection Software

You should always ensure that you have anti-virus
software installed and enabled on your computer. This
type of software can detect and block viruses before they
have a chance to cause any harm. A good anti-virus
program can scan for viruses on your hard drive or any
program, files, or documents. If it finds any viruses, it
can remove the virus, quarantine it or delete the file
safely from your computer
Sharing and Downloading Software or Files
If you download software, files or other media from the
internet and the source files are infected with hidden
viruses, you will easily transfer them to the computer
you are using.
If you do this on your home computer which may not
have the most up to date virus protection, you could
infect your home computer. If you then do work at

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home, which you bring in to your office computer on a

portable storage device like a pen drive, you will transfer
the virus to your office computer
Using your installed anti-virus software you should get
into the habit of scanning your portable storage device
before copying files to or from it
Be extremely cautious of websites that asks you to install
a 'plug-in'
Various forms of malicious software can be hidden
within plug-ins. These have the potential to install a
virus or Trojan to your machine which can steal your
information like username and passwords to other
websites
Don't open email attachments unless you are sure it is
safe.
If you get an unsolicited email message from someone
you've never heard of before, and that message includes
an attachment, don't open the attachment! The attached
file could contain a virus that could infect your machine

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CONCLUSION

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Having some understanding about computer virus and

protection against is more important now a day.
Here are some tips which will you to stay always secure
with your computer.
o Always scan your computer
o Ensure that your computer is running updated antivirus
o Always backup your important files
o Ensure internet firewall protection is enabled in
your computer
o Update your operating system
o Keep your browser updated
o Do not follow unauthorized links

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