A brief introduction to the female ghost virus

The December 2000 network was rumored to be a virus called female ghosts, the virus in Taiwan and Hong Kong after the attack has been quietly landed in the country, the virus has been in the region, the number of attacks have increased significantly. It is reported that the virus in Taiwan during the attack has caused people because of the shock, in hospital after the death, and two others because of the shock, there is a serious mental confusion and trance phenomenon, after rehabilitation of normal health. Users in Shanghai also reported outbreaks of the virus.

"Female ghost" virus also known as "Ghost" virus, its international standard named Joke-ghost, in Taiwan because its icon for McDonald's logo, so there is a "McDonald's" alias. In fact, in strict sense, "female ghost" is not a virus, but a hoax program, belonging to hoax (false message) or joke program (joke) category, and it does not have the virus "self-replicating, self-propagation and computer hardware and software damage" characteristics. But in terms of the extent of its harm and its impact on society, antivirus companies are using it as a virus to prevent its further spread in order to avoid adverse social effects.

Similar to the ghost of the prank program is very much, spread over the internet is the "earthquake" and "Delete the system" these two procedures. Such programs generally do not have the actual damage to the computer, will not replicate the propagation, and will not change the system registry to achieve long-term presence. It is generally transmitted through the form of e-mail attachments, and the general sender is a good friend of the addressee. The female ghost virus causes the attention of all parties, not because it has the influence to the computer, but has the huge intimidation and the fright function to the person who uses the computer. The source file of the female ghost virus will only display a rough horror story on the screen about a gourmet's murder of his wife, and after the user has finished reading it, you can close the program and continue to do something else. But after the first execution five minutes, the screen will suddenly appear a horror full screen female ghost image and a scary sound effect, often unsuspecting users scared stunned, serious will produce a trance situation. As a result, medical experts point out that the mischievous virus that suddenly has a female ghost on the screen is very dangerous, such as the open program of the user suffering from heart disease or epilepsy may be immediately ill, in the absence of care of the situation can easily lead to death. It has also been further pointed out that in the past there have been cases of death from sudden external shock, so that computer users are highly discouraged from using similar pranks to tease others. Foreign-reported female college students who were shocked to death in Taiwan were triggered by opening the program in the middle of the night.

Throughout this female ghost virus, which is more damaging than some other hoax programs, one of the most important is that program writers know the psychological habits of humans very well. Female ghost virus began to tell the lame horror story just a foreshadowing role, the user after reading regardless of letter and unbelief, will not forget a short time. and the program author set the Ghost image in ghosts after 5 minutes after the attack is to make full use of the psychological implication of the role. In the case of close forgetting but with a little memory and a lack of preparedness, a sudden appearance of female ghosts accompanied by a terrifying scream can indeed be a shock. Recently, more and more phenomena show that the authors of some new viruses spread on the internet have begun to use the human psychological characteristics to create the tendency of destruction. For example, the earlier popular "Love Worm" virus, the author named it "A love letter", how much a bit of the use of human psychological characteristics of color. Imagine a user who has been warned by an anti-virus expert not to open an e-mail message of dubious origin, but most people will be tempted to open the message in the face of a "love letter" sent to you by someone else. And the spread of this kind of prank program and the transmission of the virus compared with its characteristics, that is, computer users to join the transmission link. Since such programs usually do not have the ability to reproduce and propagate viruses, the spread of such programs is a man-made consequence, unlike viruses that automatically propagate to other users without the knowledge of the user, which is often intentionally transmitted by some users to other users. Some users are often driven by a mindset to "recommend" to others or simply send them directly to other users. This is the difference between this kind of program and the real virus in the way it spreads.

But we should also not overlook the following: Although this kind of joke program does not cause damage to the computer, some has evil intentions people will continue to use it as a new virus. If the female ghost virus plus the Self replication Self propagation function segment, can achieve more than now the destructive effect and the infection surface. The application of some new technologies will also play a role in the spread of the virus, such as the female ghost virus if it is written in a VBS or Java program, if the female ghost virus will infect the operating system, will modify the system configuration and documentation, enhance the concealment and the actual destructive, the destruction of the results unimaginable.

The prevention of this type of virus is the same as the normal anti-virus method. Keep in mind when using a computer: Do not open e-mail messages of dubious origin, even those from familiar friends, preferably after a clear one, and try to avoid using the mail program Outlook series that comes with Microsoft's operating system. Because Microsoft has added a lot of support for new technologies in its programs. These new technologies, on the one hand, can provide users with convenient operations and more personalized configuration, but these advanced features for ordinary users is very high risk, such as automatic preview and automatic signature features. A lot of mail viruses are written for these features in Outlook, in other words, these viruses only occur when a user uses Outlook software to receive letters, such as kak viruses and beautiful sand viruses. Users are advised to use a number of non-Microsoft Mail systems to collect mail, such as the domestic very famous foxmail. This kind of mail program because does not support Java Script and VB Script language, therefore the likelihood of these viruses is less. It is recommended that users often use anti-virus software to check the system for virus and real-time monitoring. Even users who have the habit of using antivirus software need to be aware that the software is constantly upgraded to kill more updates. In addition, do not use pirated anti-virus software, some of these software in the process of decrypting the original program to destroy the function or the virus itself. Computer users also need to be concerned about news from the mainstream media and online media, to learn about the latest virus conditions and characteristics, and to enhance their ability to defend themselves. And once the virus also don't panic, should keep a cool head, immediately shut down to minimize the loss, and then use professional anti-virus software or professional software provider to seek technical support, and solutions.