Virus question

[fabianhjr]

Yes, it is that one.

[Reason7194]

I know that my college uses applets on their online community called "blackboard"..i thought applets were sheer "Do not use" because of the possible exploits of it. I was reading this in a Java book and it so happened to be explaining applets. So, do they know what they are doing or do they just don't know the danger of them.

[Vulpine]

I know that my college uses applets on their online community called "blackboard"..i thought applets were sheer "Do not use" because of the possible exploits of it. I was reading this in a Java book and it so happened to be explaining applets. So, do they know what they are doing or do they just don't know the danger of them.

The IT department, unfortunately, will most likely have little say in that. Services like Blackboard and Desire2Learn are mostly bureaucratic decisions. Come to think of it, I think Blackboard is hosted off-site (Canada, probably). If that's the case, your local IT department definitely has no say in it.

[Okeymaker]

I have a virus relatd question too, and I thought that it would be a vaste if I strated a whole new thread just for it. I hope that it isnt "illegal" by some reason.
I WONDER, HOW ARE VIRUSES TRANSMITTED? I KNOW OF XSS WORMS, BUT HOW DO THEY OTHERWISE INFECT COMPUTERS?

[Goatboy]

I have a virus relatd question too, and I thought that it would be a vaste if I strated a whole new thread just for it. I hope that it isnt "illegal" by some reason.
I WONDER, HOW ARE VIRUSES TRANSMITTED? I KNOW OF XSS WORMS, BUT HOW DO THEY OTHERWISE INFECT COMPUTERS?

Usually via a trojan spread on something like BitTorrent or MediaFire/RapidShare. Sometimes a vulnerability can be leveraged in the user's browser, Java, Flash, etc. that will allow for a drive-by download.

[OnlyHuman]

Some also use internal shellcode, coupled with an incremental dialing mechanism to self replicate. It's basically just checking every IP for a vulnerable host, sending the shellcode, and then copying the virus to the new machine. It's possible to find and infect a number of systems extremely quickly that way, but isn't always as successful as some of the methods Goatboy mentioned, because it relies on a specific, host dependent, vulnerability to be present.

[fashizzlepop]

There are way too many different type of "virii" to cover for that question, each spread and are dealt with differently.

For example, the JS/XSS worms spread basically by themselves, something that would need to be answered way more thoroughly.

[Okeymaker]

Thanks for the answers. But also, isn´t it possible to send a virus to a specific target through a packet or something?

[Goatboy]

Thanks for the answers. But also, isn´t it possible to send a virus to a specific target through a packet or something?

A packet is just a section of data in the TCP/IP stack. Information is not sent in one big chunk, but is instead broken up into smaller sections called packets. This is so networks can deal with more than one stream at a time, and it also makes it easier to deal with failures.

That said, all viruses that are sent over the Internet are sent within packets.

[fashizzlepop]

You can't, however, just send a random virus to someone's IP because you found it somehow. Just wanted to clarify that.