Tip #2: Beware the “Norton Anti-Virus” virus

While the Windows operating system may have been host to a minor worm or virus here and there, nothing major has come along until today. A serious Windows virus is making the rounds; security experts have dubbed this one: Norton Anti-Virus.

This virus is very confusing to the lay-user because it pretends to be a software application that protects against viruses. Unfortunately, Norton Anti-Virus does little of the sort.

The goal of this little beastie is apparently to launch a denial of service (DOS) attack against the host machine. The Norton Anti-Virus virus accomplishes this very effectively by doing the following:

• monopolizing the CPU
• sequestering large chunks of memory
• saturating the I/O bus with continuous disk access
• spamming the user with popups regarding various “alerts”, “warnings”, “notifications”
• consuming network bandwidth by downloading an endless series of “updates”

Using these techniques, the Norton Anti-Virus virus can grind a host system to a halt. The impact on user productivity can only be estimated, but some analysts are predicting that this could be as bad as the Windows 95 virus.