Viruses, Hackers, Hiring

• What is a Virus?
  • Hidden
  • Replicator
  • Activator
  • Time bomb or Logic bomb
  • Can only be activated by execution
• What are Trojan Horses
  • Attractive Programs
  • That carry viruses, worms to your computer
• What is a Worm?
  • Generally considered to be s device that eats holes in files
  • Could be carried either a virus or a Trojan horse
  • The Robert Morris Case
• Viruses
  • Among the most challenging software to develop
  • Has to be invisible
  • and yet Powerful
• Types of Virus
  • executable file infectors
  • boot sector infectors
  • partition table infectors
  • cycle stealers
• How a Virus Spreads
  • From a floppy disk
    • user inserts disk, virus infects system from executable file
  • From a network
    • by way of an intrusion
    • by way of a message
    • by way of a bulletin board
  • Symptoms of a Virus
    • change of length
    • change of date or time stamp
    • longer load time
    • slower system operation
    • unexplained disk activity
    • unexplained remaining storage space
    • bad sectors on floppy disk
    • disappearing programs
    • unusual screen activity
  • Virus Protection
    • disk tabs
    • detectors
    • anti-viral detectors
  • Protection
    • make back-ups regularly
    • make the hard disk the back-up for data
    • keep master copies of programs
    • keep programs and data separate
  • Recovery
    • best solution is not to fix
    • clean and restore from your back-up

  Cyberpunks and Hackers

• What is Hacking?
  • Uninvited intrusion into systems
  • Misuse of open systems
  • Inappropriate bulletin boards
• Kinds of Hacking (per Donn Parker)
  • Benign
  • Unsavory
  • Malicious
• Hacker Profiles (per Landreth)
  • Novice
  • Student
  • Tourist
  • Crasher
  • Thief
• Techniques of Hacking
  • Cracking
  • Phreaking
  • Bulletin Boards
• ACM Recommendations for Positive Alternatives
  • Teach ethics to youngster
  • Provide teachers with ethical tools
  • Provide parental education
  • Access to real computer power
  • Closer school/industry relations
  • Regional computing center
  • Central base for experts for press
  • Hackers organization
  • Consistent state and federal laws
  • Scientific American style magazine
• Data sources for hackers
  • Garbage cans
  • Left open doors
  • Carelessness
• Virus Myths
  • If your computer can access the Internet and you detect a virus, then you contracted that virus from the Internet, no doubt about it.

Solutions to company hacking

• Hiring Practices
  • Professionals
  • Amateurs
• Who programs the world?
  • 90% of all programmers are not graduates of an accredited computer science program (at any level)
• Who trains them?
  • non-technical companies
  • secondary schools
  • professional institutes
• Professional programmers:
  • Write real programs for a large class of users
  • worry about unusual cases
  • write programs that anyone can read
  • release programs that contain known errors or strange features
  • write beautiful documentation
  • write programs with concern for future and larger applications
• Amateur programmers write programs that:
  • crash occasionally
  • only they can read
  • need to be fully tested
  • have no documentation
  • are independent of user input
  • cannot be maintained
• Accreditation -- Computer Sciences Accreditation Board
  • ACM and IEEE Computer Society
  • Four Year Colleges
  • Bachelor's degree
  • Covers
    • Curriculum
    • Resources
    • Faculty
• Certification of Individual Proficiency -- Institute of Certified Computer Programmers (ICCP)
  • No residence requirements
  • Self study courses
  • Recertification
• Professional programmers provide:
  • Designer software
  • Personal security
  • Education
• SOLUTIONS
  • Improve hiring practices
  • Do background checks
  • Hire from accredited institutions that include an ethics class

References

• How Viruses Work by Marshall Brain, "Howstuffworks.com".
• ACM. 1989. "The Worm Story", A collection of papers and reports, Comm. ACM, Vol. 32, No. 6, pp. 677-703.

• Robert Morris Case
• Landreth, Bill. 1985. Out of the Inner Circle: A Hacker's Guide to Computer Security, Microsoft Press, Bellvue WA, 230 pp.

• Lee, J.A.N., Gerald Segal, and Rosalie Steier, "Positive Alternatives: A Report of an ACM Panel on Hacking", Comm. ACM, Vol. 29, No. 4, April 1986, pp. 297-299.
• Levy, Steven. 1984. Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, Anchor Press/Doubleday, Garden City, NY, 458 pp.

• Parker, Donn B. 1976. Crime by Computer, Scribner's, New York.

• Parker, Donn B. 1983. Fighting Computer Crime, Scribner's, New York.

• Parker, Donn, and John F. Maxfield. 1985. "The Nature and Extent of Electronic Computer Intrusion", Workshop on Protection of Computer Systems and Software, National Science Foundation.

• Perry, Tekla S. and Paul Wallich. May 1984. "Can Computer Crime be Stopped?", IEEE Spectrum.

• Rob Rosenberger's chronological research into the worldwide panic surrounding the Hare virus in 1996.