Assignment task

Use your favorite search engine to find details about (1) virus/piece of malware.  Upload an MS Word or .PDF document that summarizes each of the following

Item 1: Introduction – What is meant by malware/viruses?  What is their history?  Are malware and/or viruses recent developments in computer technology or have they been around for a while?  What piece of malware/virus are choosing to write about and why? 

Item 2: Virus/Malware details:

Name of malware/virus
When and where was this virus/malware first discovered?
How prevalent is this virus/malware?  Is it regionalized by geography or business sector?  Is it worldwide? How many computers/victims has it claimed?
What has been the impact of this particular virus/malware?  Has it damaged computers/data?  Has it caused the loss of revenue or reputation?  Has it physically damaged anything?
Description of the virus/malware:
What specifically does the virus/malware do? How does it infect targets?  What does it do once it infects a host?  Does it change registry settings, does it leave behind malicious code, etc…?  Is it destructive?  If so how?

Here is an example of what I am looking for: Clients are infected with virus MadKat when they go to the web site Madkat.com and click on the link labelled: “don’t click on this link or I will infect your machine” link.  When they do this a malcious .DLL code is downloaded to the local machine.  After a machine is infected the .DLL is executed everytime someone opens up Internet Explorer.  When the .DLL is executed it encrypts the persons hard drive and in turn demands payment in order to de-encrypt it.

Item 3 – Malware/Virus removal – How effective is software in removing it?  What has to be done to remove it? What can be done to prevent being impacted by it?

Example of what I am looking for: Leading anti-virus/malware products such as <Name some products> are effective in removing the malicious .DLL,  They do this by first configuring Internet Explorer to not run the .DLL and then deleting the malicious .DLL itself.