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Internal auditors have an important role in communicating the threat posed by the spread of computer viruses and advising on appropriate control strategies. Computer virus is defined, distinguishing between “true” viruses and other rogue software like logic bombs, Trojan horses and worms. Some reported incidents are discussed; the application of risk management as an effective approach is considered. Control techniques are listed under the categories: organisational, software and hardware. How epidemiological analogy can be applied in high risk situations is explored through a system infection control programme under the direction of a system infection control committee.

Virus Attack!. Just a few weeks ago one of our PCs was attacked by the “stoned” virus, a virulent strain that attaches itself to the boot sector and partition table of any disk that happens to be around. If you have a hard disk, all you have to do is place an infected floppy disk in Drive A: and ask for a directory listing (DIR). That's enough to transfer the virus to the hard disk; from there it will infect every other floppy you place into the system.

Organizations and individuals today need to have a comprehensive virus protection policy to face the growing threats of Internet computer viruses. The purpose of this paper is to introduce to the reader the threats that Internet computer viruses can cause and provide guidelines on how organizations or individuals can protect themselves against these viruses. Discusses the full set of virus types. Recommends the development of virus protection policy for organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss various types of computer viruses, along with their characteristics, working, effects on the computer systems and to suggest measures for detecting the virus infection in a computer system and to elaborate means of prevention.

The author undertook an extensive study and review of the literature available online and on relevant web sites on the present topic.

A large number of viruses were found during the study, which are causing serious damages to computer systems. The author suggests ways to detect and prevent the different computer viruses.

The research is based on and limited to the study of the relevant literature available on different relevant web sites.

The research will benefit business organizations, business houses, educational institutions and libraries working in fully computerized environments, in detection of viruses and preventing infection of their computer systems.

The society will also benefit by attaining knowledge about the different types of computer viruses and the measures of prevention of infection.

There are a number of studies and articles available on the topic but almost all of them appear to be incomplete in the sense that either they discuss only a limited number of known viruses or suggest only limited ways of prevention. The paper has made an attempt to discuss almost all the computer viruses and every possible way of prevention of infection from them.

A computer virus is a program that can infect other programs by modifying them to include a copy of itself. When the infected programs are executed, the virus spreads itself to still other programs. Today’s society has seen a dramatic increase in the use of computers; as a result, businesses must take even more precautions to guard against the introduction of computer viruses into their systems.

Viruses, worms, Trojan horses, spywares have been effective for quite sometime in the domain of digital computers. These malicious software cause millions of dollars of loss in assets, revenue, opportunity, cleanup cost, and lost productivity. To stop virus attacks, organizations frame up different security policies. These policies work only within the limited domain of the organization’s network. However, the emergence of wireless technologies, and the seamless mobility features of the wireless devices from one network to the other have created a challenge to uphold the security policies of a particular network. Hence, in this digital society, while mobile devices roam in foreign networks, they get infected through viruses in the foreign network. Anti‐virus software is not so effective for novel viruses. There have been no reports of mobile‐phone viruses in the wild as yet. However, with the emergence of execution environments on mobile phones, it will be possible to write viruses and worms for mobile devices in cellular networks. We should be prepared to fight against viruses in the cellular networks. All the technologies available to fight against viruses are specific to virus signatures. We propose that this fight needs to be multilayered. In this paper the authors have proposed a novel philosophy in cellular network called Artificial Hygiene (AH), which is virus neutral and will work at the class level. With this process a device and the network will take the necessary steps to keep the digital environment safe.

This paper provides interesting insights for anti‐virus research, as it reflects a period of rapid uptake in the application of the Internet and the use of e‐mail for business purposes. The purpose of the research is to provide independent justification of the growing prevalence of computer virus incidents over the past five years, and identify patterns in the frequency and distribution of computer viruses. Specifically, the analysis focuses on examining the claims that computer viruses are increasing in prevalence, that computer viruses follow an evolutionary pattern and that seasonality exists in the distribution of computer viruses.

Outlines the role of viruses in relation to food safety. Those of significance fall largely into two groups – the so‐called small round‐structured viruses and Hepatitis A virus – the original source of which is human faeces. This may contaminate foods “in the field”, especially in the case of shellfish, or during food handling by infected food handlers. Although viruses cannot grow in foods, contamination of foods followed by person‐to‐person spread can lead to major outbreaks. The public health significance of food‐borne viruses is likely to become better appreciated as methods for their detection improve.

Many library computers are now connected to each other through networks and to the rest of the world through the Internet. Current information of unprecedented scope and scale is now available on the computer screen. There is, however, a dark side to all this computer interconnectivity, since it increases the possibility of diliberate unsolicited intrusion into library computers. When such an intrusion occurs, it may come in the form of a computer virus playfully invented by some computer hacker, or it may come as an uninvited e‐mail message from an eager online salesman. There are even some spiteful, vengeful, paranoid attackers who aim to cause destruction. Some intrusions can damage valuable computer‐stored information; others m ay simply divert the attention of a computer user. Protective measures should be taken to avoid some intrusions; others can simply be ignored. In this article, we take a look at some frequently encountered computer intrusions.

Understanding the computer-virus propagation is quite essential for the construction and development of anti-virus policy. While researches about the anti-virus policy have been extensively investigated, the viewpoint from sociological perspective is relatively ignored. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the dynamics of computer-virus propagation and evaluate the effectiveness of anti-virus policies through the sociological perspective.

This research constructs a virus-propagation model based on the susceptible-exposed-infective-recovered epidemic concept to simulate and explore the dynamic behavior of multipartite computer viruses through the tool of system dynamics. The effectiveness of various anti-virus policies is then evaluated via this model.

The frequency of media contact has a significant effect on the virus infection rate. The effectiveness of user self-prevention relies on the usefulness of the virus signatures. The reporting/alarm process can enhance the capability of anti-virus software company and the detected intensity of new threat. The quarantine policy can effectively reduce the spread of computer virus.

Individuals should strengthen the self-awareness of information security to reduce the negative impact. Managers should construct and implement the information security norm to regulate the behavior of staff. Anti-virus software companies should strengthen the capability of their automatic reporting/alarm mechanism to early detect the exceptional conditions and control new threats in time.

Information security management research is still in the growth phase, but it is critically important to establish the groundwork for understanding of computer viruses and the effectiveness of anti-virus policy from assorted perspectives. The major contribution of research is to explore the propagation of multipartite computer viruses and study how to prevent their destruction from the sociological and technical perspectives.