Data Loss Caused By Computer Viruses

Physical damage is a common reason for data loss: dropped laptops, for instance, often manifest data loss or corruption. Logical failures are another serious, but rather innocuous, cause of data loss. Every hard drive has a ‘useful’ life’, a certain number of hours that it is designed to perform for; once this ‘useful life’ is reached, the drive often experiences a logical failure, i.e., it ‘forgets’ where all its data is and thus appears to exhibit data loss; the data still exists, but is difficult to retrieve and salvage. However, one of the most common, and interestingly, the easiest form of data loss to prevent and protect against is a computer virus.

Before examining the manner in which viruses cause data loss, and the manner in which this loss can be prevented, it is important to understand what exactly these viruses are, what damage they can cause, and how they propagate. The Princeton University dictionary defines a virus as an ultramicroscopic infectious agent that replicates itself only within cells of living hosts; many are pathogenic; a piece of nucleic acid (DNA or RNA) wrapped in a thin coat of protein. Computer viruses were so named because they behave much like real-world viruses, and are commonly referred to as any computer code that adheres to the following definition: a computer virus is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer without permission or knowledge of the user. The original may modify the copies or the copies may modify themselves, as occurs in a metamorphic virus. A virus can only spread from one computer to another when its host is taken to the uninfected computer, for instance by a user sending it over a network or carrying it on a removable medium such as a floppy disk, CD, or USB drive.

Now that we have examined what exactly a virus is, we may examine what a virus does. The broad majority of viruses exist to cause harm, while a rare and distinct minority are ‘good’ viruses that attack other ‘bad’ viruses. However, even these ‘good’ viruses, if poorly written, or if modified by programmers with dubious intentions and motivations, can cause great harm. Some viruses merely exist as a prank; for example, to display a certain message at a certain date and time. Some are used for extortion, such crypto viruses, which spread, infect systems, encrypt vital data, and then are used to blackmail the owners of the data in order to give back access to the encrypted data, which has, unless, of course, the encryption can be cracked, rendered useless and inaccessible.

However, the broad majority of viruses result in data corruption and loss. This occurs because the virus destroys the logical portion of drives, causing extremely unpredictable behaviour and outcomes. For example, we shall examine a few common viruses that cause data corruption and loss. The first of these, chronologically, was the CIH or Chernobyl virus. Unleashed from Taiwan in June of 1998, CIH is recognised as one of the most dangerous and destructive viruses ever. The virus infected Windows 95, 98, and ME executable files and was able to remain resident in a PC's memory, where it continued to infect other executables. What made CIH so dangerous is that, shortly after activated, it would overwrite data on the host PC's hard drive, rendering it inoperable. CIH caused an estimated $80 million dollars worth of damage. Another globally destructive virus was Bagle, a classic but sophisticated worm that made its debut on January 18, 2004. The malicious code infected users' systems via the traditional mechanism—an e-mail attachment -- and then scoured Windows files for e-mail addresses it could use to replicate itself. Bagle damaged an estimated 15 million computers worldwide, wiping out an approximately 100 terabytes of data.

There are several ways to avoid data loss caused by computer viruses. The first, and most obvious, is to employ good antivirus software, such as that made by Norton, McAfee, or Trend Micro. Another is to avoid access to one’s computer system by unknown entities and computers, to block all unused ports on firewalls and servers, and to avoid opening attachments sent by unknown people. In general, Windows-based machines are far more prone to computer viruses than Mac- or Unix-based machines; one can switch for added security.

Thus, it is apparent that data loss caused by computer viruses is a serious threat that should be addressed by any user or IT manager.

Data Recovery Articles: http://www.internetionalmedia.com/Category/Data Recovery/

James Walsh is a freelance writer and copy editor. For more information on Data Recovery see www.fields-data-recovery.co.uk

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