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# A ActiveX Control: Control Browser plugin object designed to extend the functionality of your internet browser. Anti-heuristic: Efforts by virus writers to avoid having their code detected as a possible new virus by heuristic detection are known as anti-heuristic techniques. What works depends on the heuristics approach of different scanners, but some code obfuscation techniques seem to clearly be anti-heuristic. B Browser Help Object: The BHO application programming interface exposes hooks that allow the BHO to control navigation. C Cracking: Obtaining access to a system or a program with the intention of performing destructive actions that would violate laws D DOS Denial of Service: An attack on a computer system intended to reduce, or entirely block, the level of service that 'legitimate clients' can receive from that system. Dialer: Dialers are a type of software typically used by vendors serving pornography via the Internet. Once dialer software is downloaded, the user is disconnected from their modem's usual Internet service provider, re-connected to another Internet service provider (new dial-up telephone number), and the user is billed at exorbitant rates. Dialers do not "spy" on their intended victims, but these malevolent programs can rack up significant long distance phone charges, costing victims time and money. E Exploit: A way of breaking into a system. An exploit takes advantage of a weakness in a system in order to hack it. Exploits are the root of the hacker culture. Email Hoax: These are emails that provide misleading security information or contain virus laden attachments. Most of these mails provide text that advises you to forward the message to others or visit a site for you security F Firewall: Program which limits access to internet and network ports to fend off unauthorized connections. G Ghost Positive: This is a specific form of false positive, in which the error is due to 'leftover pieces' or 'remnants' of a virus that are incorrectly detected and reported as an infection. H Heuristics: Heuristics means 'rule based'. Normally, for an Anti-Virus product to detect a virus, the virus must have been seen before, analyzed and detection added to the signature update files. Heuristics are used as there are some families of viruses that continually change their appearance and it is not possible to detect every variant. Heuristics allow us to set up some rules so if it smells like a virus, and it acts like a virus we can detect it, even if we have never seen the virus before. Hijack: Any software that resets your browser's settings to point to other sites. Hijacks may reroute your info and address requests through an unseen site, capturing that info. In such hijacks, your browser may behave normally, but be slower. I Infection: Process where a virus replicates itself and performs the malicious actions it was designed to accomplish. J Joiner: Loosely a joiner is a program that takes two or more files and 'sticks them together'. In antivirus and malware circles it is typically used in reference to utilities that join two or more files together with one or more of these being executables. K Keylogger: Any program that records keystrokes is, technically, a key logger. The term tends to be used in malware circles for programs that surreptitiously record keystrokes and then make the log of keyboard activity available to someone other than the logged user(s). L Logic Bomb: Usually of payloads; code that only runs when particular logical conditions are met while executing the virus or Trojan carrying it. M Malware: Software that is meant to do harm to a computer system, includes many types of Spyware and Viruses. Metadata: "Data about data", or information that describes a piece of computer information like a program or data file. Metadata is kept or generated by the operating system to figure out what a program does or what a file is about. One type of information that the OS keeps are PE headers, these describe the executable characteristics of a program. N O Opera: Popular web browser used as an alternate to Internet Explorer. Operating System: Set of programs that runs a computer system. Windows XP is a type of operating system. P PE Header: Type of metadata that describes an executable file on a Windows system. The data is kept at that beginning of a program to describe its execution. Port: "Data Slot" used by programs on the internet to communicate with one another. Q Quality of Service: Term used to describe response time of a website or service to user requests. This is effected by Denial of Service attacks. R Registry: Place where Windows keeps settings and information for the operating system and programs on the computer. S SpywareSpyware is software installed on your computer that spys on your personal information. Script: Series of program instructions to automate a task that typically a user can perform using a program Stealth VirusVirus which takes steps to mask its actions or presence T Trojan: This term refers to software which once installed and run on your computer performs malicious tasks or replicates. Usually this software is either hidden in legitamite software that you install or is installed by legitamite software on your computer without your permission. Either way this software is a virus hidden in legitamite software. U Usage Tracks: Usage tracks permit any user (or their software agent) with access to your computer to see what you've been doing. Such tracks benefit you if you have left the tracks, but might benefit another user as well. V Virus: A computer virus is a self-replicating program that explicitly copies itself and that can infect other programs by modifying them or their environment such that a call to an infected program implies a call to a possibly evolved copy of the virus. W War Dialer: Program that automates scanning for computers which will receive incoming modem connections by calling every phone number within a determined range of phone numbers. Worm: a general term that refer to viruses spread via computer networks. They may be installed by spreading infected files on a networked disk drives that are mapped over a local area network. They also are spread via network exploits that are inherent security flaws in your programs or operating system which allows code to executed and your system to be exploited and infected. X-Z Zoo Virus: Those viruses not known to have accounted for any real-world infection incident, or that have been bypassed by computing developments, perhaps despite having once been common, are known as zoo viruses. |
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