Tuesday, February 24, 2004
Do Viruses become extinct? |12:59 PM| I wonder what happened to all those boot sector viruses. If you're unfamiliar with the concept, I'll try to give you a short explanation. On every floppy disk there's an area called the "boot sector". If you leave a floppy in a computer when it's starting up, the disk drive automatically looks to that sector for information on how to run the computer. It's how you can start a computer with a floppy disk.
If someone puts in that sector malicious code, a virus, that gets run when the computer starts. The only way for a boot sector virus to spread is if an infected disk is left inside of a computer on startup (by accident, usually). At that point, every floppy that is used on the now infected computer is infected with the boot sector virus.
Floppies are a lot less common nowadays. I would assume that most virus writers have either moved on in their lives or have lost the files used in making such an outdated type of virus. How many different viruses have died off?
I'm not saying that we should start a virus zoo, or some other conservation effort. The last thing we need is more viruses. But it was just an odd concept that occured to me.
Do Viruses become extinct? |12:59 PM| I wonder what happened to all those boot sector viruses. If you're unfamiliar with the concept, I'll try to give you a short explanation. On every floppy disk there's an area called the "boot sector". If you leave a floppy in a computer when it's starting up, the disk drive automatically looks to that sector for information on how to run the computer. It's how you can start a computer with a floppy disk.
If someone puts in that sector malicious code, a virus, that gets run when the computer starts. The only way for a boot sector virus to spread is if an infected disk is left inside of a computer on startup (by accident, usually). At that point, every floppy that is used on the now infected computer is infected with the boot sector virus.
Floppies are a lot less common nowadays. I would assume that most virus writers have either moved on in their lives or have lost the files used in making such an outdated type of virus. How many different viruses have died off?
I'm not saying that we should start a virus zoo, or some other conservation effort. The last thing we need is more viruses. But it was just an odd concept that occured to me.
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