What are Computer Viruses?
Computer Virus - a manmade program or piece of code that is loaded onto your computer without your knowledge and infects your computer.
Computer viruses piggyback on real programs. For example, a virus might attach itself to a program such as a spreadsheet program. Each time the spreadsheet program runs, the virus will run too. Once the virus is running, it will then be able to infect other programs or documents.
What are some of the different types of viruses?
Email virus - An email virus spreads itself through email messages. Once this virus is downloaded and runs, it will not only infect your computer, but it will also infect your friends' computers as well. It does this by using your address book to mail itself out.
Trojan horse - A Trojan horse is a computer program that claims to do one thing (it may claim to be a game) but instead does damage when you run it (like erasing your hard drive). Trojan horses have no way to replicate automatically, but they can greatly damage your computer and hide from or disable many antivirus programs, which may open your computer to many other infections.
Worm - A worm is software that uses the computer network and operating system's vulnerability to replicate itself. A copy of the worm scans the network for another machine that has a specific security hole. It copies itself to the new machine using the security hole, and then starts replicating from there as well. These "vulnerabilities" may be found by means of Port Scanning.
What is Port Scanning?
Port Scanning - the act of looking for open access points in order to break into another person's computer. A port is a place where information goes into and out of a computer. Port scanning identifies open doors to a computer.
All machines connected to the Internet or a LAN, run services that "listen" for either well-known or not so well-known ports. By port scanning the attacker finds which ports are available. A port scan consists of sending a message to each port. The type of response the port sends back determines whether it is being used or not and therefore the scanner can probe the port for further weakness.
NOTE: A person may not be aware that their infected computer is port scanning and infecting other computers. This person will still be held responsible for the damage that their computer has caused.
How can I prevent Port Scanning from happening?
You can't. Port scanning has legitimate uses in managing networks and is something that will occur while on the Internet.
How I do to protect myself from this?
Having an updated antivirus program is a good start, but a firewall is one of the best ways to prevent port scanning.
How can I tell if I'm being scanned?
Firewalls and other intrusion detection systems log each of the attempts so you know they are occurring. If you see this occurring, don't be alarmed. As long as you are running a properly-configured consumer operating system and taking the basic precautions used by most Internet users, the likelihood of your computer being successfully hacked is very low.
When should I contact Time Warner Cable?
Although most "attacks" are not targeting the individual, there are several cases where the individual is targeted. By looking at the event log, you can see if someone is targeting you in particular. If you only see a single or a limited number of attacks from someone, it is probably just one of the thousands of hackers on the Internet running a scan. If you see many different attacks from someone over a prolonged period of time, the attack may be targeted and you should submit the information to the hacker's ISP (See How do I format complaints? ).
Additional information on Port Scanning can be found on the Road Runner On-Line Helpdesk at .http://help.rr.com
