Question

Research a virus or malware that spreads via the network once it has infected a computer. Items to note are the following:

Name of the infection?

How does it infect the original host?

Is their a fix for the infection, ie Critical Security Update?

What process does it hijack on the computer

How does it spread from the original host?

What damage can it do over the network?

How can an administrator stop the spread of the infection?

Answer 1

Viruses are infectious programs that are sent from one computer to another computer and in turn infect a lot of computers in the network, to be taken control and to leak information and data by the attacker. Viruses spread when the software or document they are attached to is transferred from one computer to another using the network, a disk, file sharing, or infected e-mail attachments.

Items to note are the following:

Name of the infection? - WannaCry ransomware

How does it infect the original host? - The ransomware is spread by taking advantage of a Windows vulnerability that Microsoft (MSFT) released a security patch for in March.

Is their a fix for the infection, ie Critical Security Update? -

What process does it hijack on the computer? - Microsoft has taken the process of releasing patch for computers running older operating systems including Windows XP, Windows 8 and Windows Server 2003 and also newer OS to counter the hijack.

How does it spread from the original host? - As said earlier it works on a security vulnerability and takes advantage of a Windows vulnerability.

What damage can it do over the network? - Affected machine have to pay a ransom to get access and control over their own computers and data as the ransomware blocks everything on the computer. The ransomware can spread over networks through files and emails and can infect other computers easily.

How can an administrator stop the spread of the infection? - The administrator can have a in place well antivirus software and firewall to fight and have security against the virus. Also the security patch from Microsoft has to be installed.