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Operating system

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An operating system (OS) is the software that manages the sharing of the resources of a computer and provides programmers with an interface used to access those resources. An operating system processes system data and user input, and responds by allocating and managing tasks and internal system resources as a service to users and programs of the system. At the foundation of all system software, an operating system performs basic tasks such as controlling and allocating memory, prioritizing system requests, controlling input and output devices, facilitating Computer networking and managing files. Most operating systems come with an application that provides an interface for managing the operating system. The operating system forms a platform for other software.

Common contemporary desktop OSes are Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Windows is most popular on desktops, Linux is most popular on servers. However many Linux distributions are also used on personal computers as a desktop and Windows is also used on servers. Mac OS X has both server and personal versions.

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Process management

Every program running on a computer, be it a service or an application, is a Process. Originally only one process per CPU could be run at a time.[citation needed] Older microcomputer OSes such as MS-DOS did not attempt to bypass this limit, with the exception of interrupt processing, and only one process could be run under them (although DOS itself featured TSR as a very partial and not too easy to use solution).

Most operating systems enable concurrent execution of many processes and programs at once via multitasking, even with one CPU. The mechanism was used in mainframes since the early 1960s, but in the personal computers it became available in 1990s. Process management is an operating system's way of dealing with running those multiple processes. On the most fundamental of computers (those containing one processor with one core) multitasking is done by simply switching processes quickly. Depending on the operating system, as more processes run, either each time slice will become smaller or there will be a longer delay before each process is given a chance to run. Process management involves computing and distributing CPU time as well as other resources. Most operating systems allow a process to be assigned a priority which affects its allocation of CPU time. Interactive operating systems also employ some level of feedback in which the task with which the user is working receives higher priority. Interrupt driven processes will normally run at a very high priority. In many systems there is a background process, such as the System Idle Process in Windows, which will run when no other process is waiting for the CPU.

Memory management

Current computer architectures arrange the computer's system in a hierarchical manner, starting from the fastest registers, CPU cache, random access memory and disk storage. An operating system's disk manager coordinates the use of these various types of memory by tracking which one is available, which is to be allocated or deallocated and how to move data between them. This activity, usually referred to as virtual memory management, increases the amount of memory available for each process by making the disk storage seem like main memory. There is a speed penalty associated with using disks or other slower storage as memory – if running processes require significantly more RAM than is available, the system may start thrashing. This can happen either because one process requires a large amount of RAM or because two or more processes compete for a larger amount of memory than is available. This then leads to constant transfer of each process's data to slower storage.

Another important part of memory management is managing virtual addresses. If multiple processes are in memory at once, they must be prevented from interfering with each other's memory (unless there is an explicit request to utilize shared memory). This is achieved by having separate address spaces. Each process sees the whole virtual address space, typically from address 0 up to the maximum size of virtual memory, as uniquely assigned to it. The operating system maintains a page table that match virtual addresses to physical addresses. These memory allocations are tracked so that when a process terminates, all memory used by that process can be made available for other processes.

The operating system can also write inactive memory pages to secondary storage. This process is called "paging" or "swapping" – the terminology varies between operating systems.

It is also typical for operating systems to employ otherwise unused physical memory as a page cache; requests for data from a slower device can be retained in memory to improve performance. The operating system can also preload the in-memory cache with data that may be requested by the user in the near future; SuperFetch is an example of this.

Disk and file systems

Generally, operating systems include support for file systems.

Modern file systems comprise a hierarchy of directories. While the idea is conceptually similar across all general-purpose file systems, some differences in implementation exist. Two noticeable examples of this are the character used to separate directories, and case sensitivity.

Unix demarcates its path components with a slash (/), a convention followed by operating systems that emulated it or at least its concept of hierarchical directories, such as Linux, Amiga OS and Mac OS X. MS-DOS also emulated this feature, but had already also adopted the CP/M convention of using slashes for additional options to commands, so instead used the backslash (\) as its component separator. Microsoft Windows continues with this convention; Japanese editions of Windows use ¥, and Korean editions use ₩.[1] Prior to Mac OS X, versions of Mac OS use a colon (:) for a path separator. RISC OS uses a period (.).

Unix and Unix-like operating systems allow for any character in file names other than the slash and NUL characters (including line feed (LF) and other control characters). Unix file names are case sensitive, which allows multiple files to be created with names that differ only in case. By contrast, Microsoft Windows file names are not case sensitive by default. Windows also has a larger set of punctuation characters that are not allowed in file names.

File systems may provide journaling, which provides safe recovery in the event of a system crash. A journaled file system writes information twice: first to the journal, which is a log of file system operations, then to its proper place in the ordinary file system. In the event of a crash, the system can recover to a consistent state by replaying a portion of the journal. In contrast, non-journaled file systems typically need to be examined in their entirety by a utility such as fsck or chkdsk. Soft updates is an alternative to journaling that avoids the redundant writes by carefully ordering the update operations. Log-structured file systems and ZFS also differ from traditional journaled file systems in that they avoid inconsistencies by always writing new copies of the data, eschewing in-place updates.

Many Linux distributions support some or all of ext2, ext3, ReiserFS, Reiser4, GFS, GFS2, OCFS, OCFS2, and NILFS. Linux also has full support for XFS and JFS, along with the FAT file systems, and NTFS.

Microsoft Windows includes support for FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, and NTFS. The NTFS file system is the most efficient and reliable of the four Windows file systems, and as of Windows Vista, is the only file system which the operating system can be installed on. Windows Embedded CE 6.0 introduced ExFAT, a file system suitable for flash drives.

Mac OS X supports HFS+ with journaling as its primary file system. It is derived from the Hierarchical File System of the earlier Mac OS. Mac OS X has facilities to read and write FAT16, FAT32, NTFS and other file systems, but cannot be installed to them.

Common to all these (and other) operating systems is support for file systems typically found on removable media. FAT12 is the file system most commonly found on floppy discs. ISO 9660 and Universal Disk Format are two common formats that target Compact Discs and DVDs, respectively. Mount Rainier is a newer extension to UDF supported by Linux 2.6 kernels and Windows Vista that facilitates rewriting to DVDs in the same fashion as has been possible with floppy disks.

Networking

Most current operating systems are capable of using the TCP/IP networking protocols. This means that computers running dissimilar operating systems can participate in a common network for sharing resources such as computing, files, printers, and scanners using either wired or wireless connections.

Many operating systems also support one or more vendor-specific legacy networking protocols as well, for example, SNA on IBM systems, DECnet on systems from Digital Equipment Corporation, and Microsoft-specific protocols on Windows. Specific protocols for specific tasks may also be supported such as NFS for file access.

Security

Many operating systems include some level of security. Security is based on the two ideas that:

  • The operating system provides access to a number of resources, directly or indirectly, such as files on a local disk, privileged system calls, personal information about users, and the services offered by the programs running on the system;
  • The operating system is capable of distinguishing between some requesters of these resources who are authorized (allowed) to access the resource, and others who are not authorized (forbidden). While some systems may simply distinguish between "privileged" and "non-privileged", systems commonly have a form of requester identity, such as a user name. Requesters, in turn, divide into two categories:
    • Internal security: an already running program. On some systems, a program once it is running has no limitations, but commonly the program has an identity which it keeps and is used to check all of its requests for resources.
    • External security: a new request from outside the computer, such as a login at a connected console or some kind of network connection. To establish identity there may be a process of authentication. Often a username must be quoted, and each username may have a password. Other methods of authentication, such as magnetic cards or biometric data, might be used instead. In some cases, especially connections from the network, resources may be accessed with no authentication at all.

In addition to the allow/disallow model of security, a system with a high level of security will also offer auditing options. These would allow tracking of requests for access to resources (such as, "who has been reading this file?").

Security of operating systems has long been a concern because of highly sensitive data held on computers, both of a commercial and military nature. The United States Government Department of Defense (DoD) created the Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria (TCSEC) which is a standard that sets basic requirements for assessing the effectiveness of security. This became of vital importance to operating system makers, because the TCSEC was used to evaluate, classify and select computer systems being considered for the processing, storage and retrieval of sensitive or classified information.

Internal security

Internal security can be thought of as protecting the computer's resources from the programs concurrently running on the system. Most operating systems set programs running natively on the computer's processor, so the problem arises of how to stop these programs doing the same task and having the same privileges as the operating system (which is after all just a program too). Processors used for general purpose operating systems generally have a hardware concept of privilege. Generally less privileged programs are automatically blocked from using certain hardware instructions, such as those to read or write from external devices like disks. Instead, they have to ask the privileged program (operating system kernel) to read or write. The operating system therefore gets the chance to check the program's identity and allow or refuse the request.

An alternative strategy, and the only sandbox strategy available in systems that do not meet the Popek and Goldberg virtualization requirements, is the operating system not running user programs as native code, but instead either emulates a processor or provides a host for a p-code based system such as Java.

Internal security is especially relevant for multi-user systems; it allows each user of the system to have private files that the other users cannot tamper with or read. Internal security is also vital if auditing is to be of any use, since a program can potentially bypass the operating system, inclusive of bypassing auditing.

External security

Typically an operating system offers (or hosts) various services to other network computers and users. These services are usually provided through ports or numbered access points beyond the operating system's network address. Services include offerings such as file sharing, print services, email, web sites, and file transfer protocols (FTP), most of which can have compromised security.

At the front line of security are hardware devices known as firewalls or intrusion detection/prevention systems. At the operating system level, there are a number of software firewalls available, as well as intrusion detection/prevention systems. Most modern operating systems include a software firewall, which is enabled by default. A software firewall can be configured to allow or deny network traffic to or from a service or application running on the operating system. Therefore, one can install and be running an insecure service, such as Telnet or FTP, and not have to be threatened by a security breach because the firewall would deny all traffic trying to connect to the service on that port.

Graphical user interfaces

Today, most modern computer systems contain Graphical User Interfaces. In some computer systems the GUI is integrated into the kernel—for example, in the original implementations of Microsoft Windows and Mac OS, the graphical subsystem was actually part of the kernel. Other operating systems, some older ones and some modern ones, are modular, separating the graphics subsystem from the kernel and the Operating System. In the 1980's UNIX, VMS and many others had operating systems that were built this way. Today Linux, and Mac OS X are also built this way.

Many computer systems allow the user to install or create any user interface they desire. The X Window System in conjunction with GNOME or KDE is a commonly found setup on most Unix and Unix-like (BSD, Linux, Minix) systems.

Graphical user interfaces evolve over time. For example, Windows has modified its user interface almost every time a new major version of Windows is released, and the Mac OS GUI changed dramatically with the introduction of Mac OS X in 2001.

Device drivers

A device driver is a specific type of computer software developed to allow interaction with hardware devices. Typically this constitutes an interface for communicating with the device, through the specific computer bus or communications subsystem that the hardware is connected to, providing commands to and/or receiving data from the device, and on the other end, the requisite interfaces to the operating system and software applications. It is a specialized hardware-dependent computer program which is also operating system specific that enables another program, typically an operating system or applications software package or computer program running under the operating system kernel, to interact transparently with a hardware device, and usually provides the requisite interrupt handling necessary for any necessary asynchronous time-dependent hardware interfacing needs.

The key design goal of device drivers is abstraction. Every model of hardware (even within the same class of device) is different. Newer models also are released by manufacturers that provide more reliable or better performance and these newer models are often controlled differently. Computers and their operating systems cannot be expected to know how to control every device, both now and in the future. To solve this problem, OSes essentially dictate how every type of device should be controlled. The function of the device driver is then to translate these OS mandated function calls into device specific calls. In theory a new device, which is controlled in a new manner, should function correctly if a suitable driver is available. This new driver will ensure that the device appears to operate as usual from the operating systems' point of view for any person..

History

The first computers did not have operating systems. By the early 1960s, commercial computer vendors were supplying quite extensive tools for streamlining the development, scheduling, and execution of jobs on batch processing systems. Examples were produced by UNIVAC and Control Data Corporation, amongst others.

[edit] Mainframes

Through the 1960s, many major features were pioneered in the field of operating systems. The development of the IBM System/360 produced a family of mainframe computers available in widely differing capacities and price points, for which a single operating system OS/360 was planned (rather than developing ad-hoc programs for every individual model). This concept of a single OS spanning an entire product line was crucial for the success of System/360 and, in fact, IBM's current mainframe operating systems are distant descendants of this original system; applications written for the OS/360 can still be run on modern machines. OS/360 also contained another important advance: the development of the hard disk permanent storage device (which IBM called DASD).

Control Data Corporation developed the SCOPE operating system in the 1960s, for batch processing. In cooperation with the University of Minnesota, the KRONOS and later the NOS operating systems were developed during the 1970s, which supported simultaneous batch and timesharing use. Like many commercial timesharing systems, its interface was an extension of the Dartmouth BASIC operating systems, one of the pioneering efforts in timesharing and programming languages. In the late 1970s, Control Data and the University of Illinois developed the PLATO operating system, which used plasma panel displays and long-distance time sharing networks. Plato was remarkably innovative for its time, featuring real-time chat, and multi-user graphical games.

Burroughs Corporation introduced the B5000 in 1961 with the MCP, (Master Control Program) operating system. The B5000 was a stack machine designed to exclusively support high-level languages with no machine language or assembler and indeed the MCP was the first OS to be written exclusively in a high-level language (ESPOL, a dialect of ALGOL). MCP also introduced many other ground-breaking innovations, such as being the first commercial implementation of virtual memory. MCP is still in use today in the Unisys ClearPath/MCP line of computers.

UNIVAC, the first commercial computer manufacturer, produced a series of EXEC operating systems. Like all early main-frame systems, this was a batch-oriented system that managed magnetic drums, disks, card readers and line printers. In the 1970s, UNIVAC produced the Real-Time Basic (RTB) system to support large-scale time sharing, also patterned after the Dartmouth BASIC system.

General Electric and MIT developed General Electric Comprehensive Operating Supervisor (GECOS), which introduced the concept of ringed security privilege levels. After acquisition by Honeywell it was renamed to General Comprehensive Operating System (GCOS).

Digital Equipment Corporation developed many operating systems for its various computer lines, including TOPS-10 and TOPS-20 time sharing systems for the 36-bit PDP-10 class systems. Prior to the widespread use of UNIX, TOPS-10 was a particularly popular system in universities, and in the early ARPANET community.

In the late 1960s through the late 1970s, several hardware capabilities evolved that allowed similar or ported software to run on more than one system. Early systems had utilized microprogramming to implement features on their systems in order to permit different underlying architecture to appear to be the same as others in a series. In fact most 360's after the 360/40 (except the 360/165 and 360/168) were microprogrammed implementations. But soon other means of achieving application compatibility were proven to be more significant.

The enormous investment in software for these systems made since 1960s caused most of the original computer manufacturers to continue to develop compatible operating systems along with the hardware. The notable supported mainframe operating systems include:

Microcomputers

The first microcomputers did not have the capacity or need for the elaborate operating systems that had been developed for mainframes and minis; minimalistic operating systems were developed, often loaded from ROM and known as Monitors. One notable early disk-based operating system was CP/M, which was supported on many early microcomputers and was closely imitated in MS-DOS, which became wildly popular as the operating system chosen for the IBM PC (IBM's version of it was called IBM-DOS or PC-DOS), its successors making Microsoft one of the world's most profitable companies. In the 80's Apple Computer Inc. (now Apple Inc.) abandoned its popular Apple II series of microcomputers to introduce the Apple Macintosh computer with the an innovative Graphical User Interface (GUI) to the Mac OS.

The introduction of the Intel 80386 CPU chip with 32-bit architecture and paging capabilities, provided personal computers with the ability to run multitasking operating systems like those of earlier minicomputers and mainframes. Microsoft's responded to this progress by hiring Dave Cutler, who had developed the VMS operating system for Digital Equipment Corporation. He would lead the development of the Windows NT operating system, which continues to serve as the basis for Microsoft's operating systems line. Steve Jobs, a co-founder of Apple Inc., started NeXT Computer Inc., which developed the Unix-like NEXTSTEP operating system. NEXTSTEP would later be acquired by Apple Inc. and used, along with code from FreeBSD as the core of Mac OS X.

Minix, an academic teaching tool which could be run on early PCs, would inspire another reimplementation of Unix, called Linux. Started by computer student Linus Torvalds with cooperation from volunteers over the internet, developed a kernel which was combined with the tools from the GNU Project. The Berkeley Software Distribution, known as BSD, is the UNIX derivative distributed by the University of California, Berkeley, starting in the 1970s. Freely distributed and ported to many minicomputers, it eventually also gained a following for use on PCs, mainly as FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD.

Some Operating Systems

Microsoft Windows

The Microsoft Windows family of operating systems originated as an add-on to the older MS-DOS operating system for the IBM PC. Modern versions are based on the newer Windows NT kernel that was originally intended for OS/2 and borrowed from VMS. Windows runs on x86, x86-64 and Itanium processors. Earlier versions also ran on the DEC Alpha, MIPS, Fairchild (later Intergraph) Clipper and PowerPC architectures (some work was done to port it to the SPARC architecture).

As of September 2007, Microsoft Windows holds a large amount of the worldwide desktop market share. Windows is also used on servers, supporting applications such as web servers and database servers. In recent years, Microsoft has spent significant marketing and research & development money to demonstrate that Windows is capable of running any enterprise application, which has resulted in consistent price/performance records (see the TPC) and significant acceptance in the enterprise market.

The most widely used version of the Microsoft Windows family is Windows XP, released on October 25, 2001.

In November 2006, after more than five years of development work, Microsoft released Windows Vista, a major new operating system version of Microsoft Windows family which contains a large number of new features and architectural changes. Chief amongst these are a new user interface and visual style called Windows Aero, a number of new security features such as User Account Control, and few new multimedia applications such as Windows DVD Maker.

Microsoft has announced a new version codenamed Windows 7 will be released in 2011 or later.

Plan 9

Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Douglas McIlroy at Bell Labs designed and developed the C programming language to build the operating system Unix. Programmers at Bell Labs went on to develop Plan 9 and Inferno, which were engineered for modern distributed environments. Plan 9 was designed from the start to be a networked operating system, and had graphics built-in, unlike Unix, which added these features to the design later. Plan 9 has yet to become as popular as Unix derivatives, but it has an expanding community of developers. It is currently released under the Lucent Public License. Inferno was sold to Vita Nuova Holdings and has been released under a GPL/MIT license.

Unix and Unix-like operating systems

A customized KDE desktop running under Linux.
A customized KDE desktop running under Linux.

Ken Thompson wrote B, mainly based on BCPL, which he used to write Unix, based on his experience in the MULTICS project. B became C, and Unix developed into a large, complex family of inter-related OS and Development Environments which have been influential in every modern OS (see History).

The Unix-like family is a diverse group of operating systems, with several major sub-categories including System V, BSD, and Linux. The name "UNIX" is a trademark of The Open Group which licenses it for use with any operating system that has been shown to conform to their definitions. "Unix-like" is commonly used to refer to the large set of operating systems which resemble the original Unix.

Unix systems run on a wide variety of machine architectures. They are used heavily as server systems in business, as well as workstations in academic and engineering environments. Free software Unix variants, such as GNU, Linux and BSD, are popular in these areas. The market share for Linux is divided between many different distributions. Enterprise class distributions by Red Hat or SuSe are used by corporations, but some home users may use those products. Historically home users typically installed a distribution themselves, but in 2007 Dell began to offer the Ubuntu Linux distribution on home PCs. Linux on the desktop is also popular in the developer and hobbyist operating system development communities. (see below)

Market share statistics for freely available operating systems are usually inaccurate since most free operating systems are not purchased, making usage under-represented. On the other hand, market share statistics based on total downloads of free operating systems are often inflated, as there is no economic disincentive to acquire multiple operating systems so users can download multiple systems, test them, and decide which they like best.

Some Unix variants like HP's HP-UX and IBM's AIX are designed to run only on that vendor's hardware. Others, such as Solaris, can run on multiple types of hardware, including x86 servers and PCs. Apple's Mac OS X, a hybrid kernel-based BSD variant derived from NeXTSTEP, Mach, and FreeBSD, has replaced Apple's earlier (non-Unix) Mac OS.

Unix interoperability was sought by establishing the POSIX standard. The POSIX standard can be applied to any operating system, although it was originally created for various Unix variants.

Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a line of proprietary, graphical operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc., the latest of which is pre-loaded on all currently shipping Macintosh computers. Mac OS X is the successor to the original Mac OS, which had been Apple's primary operating system since 1984. Unlike its predecessor, Mac OS X is a UNIX operating system built on technology that had been developed at NeXT through the second half of the 1980s and up until Apple purchased the company in early 1997.

The operating system was first released in 1999 as Mac OS X Server 1.0, with a desktop-oriented version (Mac OS X v10.0) following in March 2001. Since then, five more distinct "end-user" and "server" editions of Mac OS X have been released, the most recent being Mac OS X v10.5, which was first made available in October 2007. Releases of Mac OS X are named after big cats; Mac OS X v10.5 is usually referred to by Apple and users as "Leopard".

The server edition, Mac OS X Server, is architecturally identical to its desktop counterpart but usually runs on Apple's line of Macintosh server hardware. Mac OS X Server includes workgroup management and administration software tools that provide simplified access to key network services, including a mail transfer agent, a Samba server, an LDAP server, a domain name server, and others.

Embedded systems

Embedded systems use a variety of dedicated operating systems. In some cases, the "operating system" software is directly linked to the application to produce a monolithic special-purpose program. In the simplest embedded systems, there is no distinction between the OS and the application. Embedded systems that have certain time requirements are known as real-time operating systems.

Operating systems such as VxWorks, eCos, and Palm OS, are unrelated to Unix and Windows. Windows CE is descendant of Windows, and several embedded BSD and Linux distributions exist.

Hobby operating system development

Operating system development, or OSDev for short, as a hobby has a large cult following. As such, operating systems, such as Linux, have derived from hobby operating system projects. The design and implementation of an operating system requires skill and determination, and the term can cover anything from a basic "Hello World" boot loader[citation needed] to a fully featured kernel. One classical example of this is the Minix Operating System -- an OS that was designed as a teaching tool but was heavily used by hobbyists before Linux eclipsed it in popularity.

Other

Older operating systems which are still used in niche markets include OS/2 from IBM; Mac OS, the non-Unix precursor to Apple's Mac OS X; BeOS; XTS-300. Some, most notably AmigaOS and RISC OS, continue to be developed as minority platforms for enthusiast communities and specialist applications. OpenVMS formerly from DEC, is still under active development by Hewlett-Packard.

Research and development of new operating systems continues. GNU Hurd is designed to be backwards compatible with Unix, but with enhanced functionality and a microkernel architecture. Singularity is a project at Microsoft Research to develop an operating system with better memory protection based on the .Net managed code model.

References

Bibliography

See also

External links

Look up Operating system in
Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

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About Virus Computer

Apa itu virus?
Virus atau worm adalah suatu program komputer yang dapat menyebar pada komputer atau jaringan dengan cara membuat copy dari dirinya sendiri tanpa sepengetahuan dari pengguna komputer tersebut. Virus dapat menimbulkan efek yang berbahaya, misalnya mulai dari menampilkan pesan, mencuri data atau bahkan mengontrol komputer Anda dari jarak jauh.

Cara virus menginfeksi komputer
Suatu virus pertama kali harus dijalankan sebelum ia mampu untuk menginfeksi suatu komputer. Ada berbagai macam cara agar virus ini dijalankan oleh korban, misalnya dengan menempelkan dirinya pada suatu program yang lain. Ada juga virus yang jalan ketika Anda membuka suatu tipe file tertentu. Kadangkala virus juga memanfaatkan celah keamanan yang ada pada komputer Anda (baik sistem operasi atau aplikasi), dengan memanfaatkan hal-hal tersebut virus dapat berjalan dan kemudian akan menyebarkan dirinya sendiri secara otomatis.

Anda juga dapat menerima suatu file yang sudah terinfeksi virus dalam attachment e-mail Anda. Begitu file tersebut Anda jalankan, maka kode virus akan berjalan dan mulai menginfeksi komputer Anda dan bisa menyebar pula ke semua file yang ada di jaringan komputer Anda.

Trojan horse
Trojan horse adalah program yang kelihatan seperti program yang valid atau normal, tetapi sebenarnya program tersebut membawa suatu kode dengan fungsi-fungsi yang sangat berbahaya bagi komputer Anda.

Sebagai contoh, virus DLoader-L datang dari attachment e-mail dan dianggap sebagai sebagai suatu update program dari Microsoft untuk sistem operasi Windows XP. Jika Anda menjalankannya maka dia akan mendownload program dan akan memanfaatkan komputer Anda untuk menghubungkan komputer Anda ke suatu website tertentu. Targetnya tentu saja untuk membuat website tadi menjadi overload dan akhirnya tidak bisa diakses dengan benar oleh pihak lain. Ini sering dinamakan dengan serangan denial of service atau DoS.

Trojan tidak dapat menyebar secepat virus karena trojan tidak membuat copy dari dirinya sendiri secara otomatis. Tapi sejalan dengan perkembangan virus, maka trojan horse bisa bekerjasama dengan virus dalam hal penyebarannya. Virus dapat melakukan download terhadap trojan yang merekam keystroke keyboard Anda atau mencuri informasi yang ada pada komputer Anda. Di sisi lain, trojan juga digunakan untuk menginfeksi suatu komputer dengan virus.

Worms
Worm bisa dikatakan mirip dengan virus tetapi worm tidak memerlukan carrier dalam hal ini program atau suatu dokumen. Worm mampu membuat copy dari dirinya sendiri dan mengunakan jaringan komunikasi antar komputer untuk menyebarkan dirinya. Banyak virus seperti MyDoom atau Bagle bekerja sebagaimana layaknya worm dan menggunakan e-mail untuk mem-forward dirinya sendiri kepada pihak lain.

Yang bisa dilakukan oleh virus
Virus seringkali mengganggu Anda atau menghentikan kerja komputer Anda pada saat diperlukan. Sejalan dengan perkembangan di dunia virus komputer maka sampai saat ini efek dari virus ini sudah semakin banyak, yaitu:

  • Memperlambat e-mail
    Virus dapat menyebar melalui e-mail, seperti virus Sobig, dan mampu untuk membuat trafik e-mail yang sangat besar yang tentu saja akan membuat server menjadi lambat atau bahkan menjadi crash. Bahkan jika hal tersebut tidak sampai terjadi, perusahaan yang merasa terganggu dengan insiden ini toh juga akan mematikan servernya.
  • Mencuri data konfidental
    Worm Bugbear-D contohnya, mampu merekam keystroke keyboard Anda, termasuk password dan lain sebagainya. Rekaman tadi biasanya akan dikirim ke si pembuat virus untuk dimanfaatkan lebih lanjut.
  • Menggunakan komputer Anda untuk menyerang suatu situs
    MyDoom contohnya, dia menginfeksi banyak komputer di seluruh dunia untuk menyerang situs SCO dengan traffic data yang sangat besar. Ini akan membuat situs tersebut akan terbebani luar biasa dan akhirnya akan crash dan tidak bisa melayani pengguna lainnya. Ini biasa dinamakan dengan denial of service.
  • Membiarkan orang lain untuk membajak komputer Anda
    Beberapa virus menempatkan trojan backdoor pada komputer dan ini akan membuat si pembuat virus dapat terhubung ke komputer tersebut secara diam-diam dan bisa dimanfaatkan lebih lanjut sesuai dengan keinginannya.
  • Merusak data
    Virus Compatable contohnya, dapat membuat perubahan pada data yang Anda simpan pada dokumen MS Excel.
  • Menghapus data
    Virus Sircam contohnya, berusaha untuk menghapus atau meng-overwrite hardisk Anda pada suatu waktu tertentu yang tidak terduga.
  • Men-disable hardware
    Virus CIH atau Chernobyl contohnya, berusaha untuk meng-overwrite chip BIOS pada tanggal 26 April dan akan membuat komputer Anda menjadi tidak berfungsi.
  • Menimbulkan hal-hal yang aneh dan mengganggu
    Virus worm Netsky-D contohnya, dapat membuat komputer berbunyi beep secara spontan atau tiba-tiba untuk beberapa jam lamanya.
  • Menampilkan pesan tertentu
    Virus Cone-F contohnya, akan menampilkan pesan berbau politik jika bulan menunjukkan bulan Mei.
  • Merusak kredibilitas Anda
    Jika virus mem-forward dirinya sendiri dari komputer Anda ke komputer pelanggan Anda atau komputer rekan bisnis Anda, maka hal ini akan merusak reputasi Anda sebagai suatu organisasi dan mereka akan tidak mau lagi melanjutkan hubungan bisnis dengan Anda atau malah menuntut kompensasi dari pihak Anda.
  • Membuat malu Anda
    Virus PolyPost contohnya, akan memposting dokumen dan nama Anda pada newsgroup yang berbau pornografi.

letak risiko terhadap virus komputer
Virus dapat menjangkau komputer Anda melalui berbagai macam cara. Beberapa diantaranya adalah sebagai berikut.

  • Program dan dokumen
    Program komputer dan juga dokumen dapat terinfeksi oleh virus. Ketika Anda men-sharing program atau dokumen tadi kepada rekan-rekan Anda yang lain, maka hal ini akan membuat penyebaran virus akan semakin luas apalagi jika menyebar melalui jaringan LAN kantor Anda atau bahkan melalui internet.
  • Internet
    Anda bisa saja men-download program atau dokumen yang sudah terinfeksi virus dari internet. Celah keamanan pada komputer Anda dapat membuat virus untuk memanfaatkannya. Virus dapat menular ke komputer Anda melalui internet secara otomatis tanpa Anda melakukan apa-apa sebelumnya.
  • E-mail
    E-mail yang Anda terima setiap hari dapat saja membawa virus melalui attachment. Begitu Anda menjalankan program atau dokumen yang ada pada attachment tadi, maka komputer Anda akan terinfeksi oleh virus. Beberapa e-mail bahkan dapat mengandung script berbahaya yang akan dijalankan begitu Anda melakukan preview terhadap e-mail atau membaca isi dari e-mail Anda.
  • CD atau disket
    Disket dapat membawa virus pada boot sector-nya. CD atau disket juga bisa berisi program yang sudah terinfeksi oleh virus.

File-file yang bisa diinfeksi oleh virus
Virus dapat menempelkan dirinya pada apa saja yang berjalan pada komputer Anda. Apa sajakah hal tersebut? Simak saja penjelasan berikut ini.

  • Program
    Beberapa virus mampu untuk menginfeksi program komputer. Jika Anda menjalankan program yang sudah terinfeksi virus tadi, maka kode virus secara otomatis juga akan dijalankan pertama kali. Virus-virus jenis ini muncul pada saat awal-awal munculnya virus di dunia komputer dan sampai sekarang masih merupakan ancaman yang serius apalagi dengan perkembangan internet yang mampu untuk mendistribusikan program dengan cepat ke seluruh dunia.
  • Dokumen
    Word processing atau spreadsheet, seperti MS Word atau MS Excel, seringkali menggunakan macro untuk mengotomatisasi suatu pekerjaan. Beberapa virus memanfaatkan fasilitas macro ini untuk menyebarkan dirinya sendiri ke dokumen yang lainnya. Jika Anda menjalankan dokumen yang mengandung virus macro ini, maka dia akan meng-copy dirinya ke startup program yang membuka dokumen tersebut dan akhirnya bisa menulari dokumen lainnya yang masih bersih dari virus.
  • Boot sector
    Ketika Anda menghidupkan komputer, maka komputer akan mengakses suatu bagian pada disk yang disebut dengan "boot sector" dan akan menjalankan program yang nantinya akan memulai sistem operasi. Pada jaman awal-awalnya virus komputer, seringkali area boot sector ini ditumpuki dengan kode virus, sehingga ketika komputer dinyalakan dan mengakses boot sector, maka kode virus secara otomatis akan dijalankan pula.

Virus e-mail
Kebanyakan virus e-mail ini sangat tergantung dari user yang mengklik dokumen atau program yang ada pada attachment e-mail. Ini akan menimbulkan virus untuk mem-forward dokumen yang terinfeksi tadi kepada alamat e-mail yang lainnya. Virus Netsky sebagai contoh, mampu mencari file-file dalam komputer Anda yang berisi alamat e-mail (misalnya HTML file atau file dalam format EML), dan akan menggunakan program e-mail yang ada pada komputer Anda untuk mengirimkan dokumen yang terinfeksi ke alamat-alamat e-mail yang sudah didapat tadi. Beberapa virus lainnya seperti Sobig-F bahkan sudah tidak memerlukan program e-mail pada komputer Anda untuk mengirimkan e-mail, tetapi mereka memiliki SMTP engine sendiri untuk mengirimkan e-mail. E-mail virus ini bisa menguasai komputer Anda atau bahkan mencuri data. Tetapi target utama dari jenis virus e-mail ini biasanya akan menimbulkan trafik e-mail yang sangat besar dan membuat server menjadi crash.

Sekali lagi hati-hatilah terhadap attachment pada e-mail Anda. Bahkan attachment dengan ekstensi .txt juga dapat berbahaya karena seringkali dibelakangnya masih ada ekstensi lagi misalnya .vbs yang dapat berisi script dari virus.

Dapatkah saya terkena virus hanya dengan membaca suatu e-mail?
Anda tidak perlu membuka atau menjalankan program dalam attachment e-mail untuk dapat terinfeksi virus. Beberapa virus, seperti Kakworm dan Bubbleboy, dapat menginfeksi komputer Anda begitu Anda membaca e-mail. Mereka akan tampak seperti pesan e-mail yang normal tetapi di dalamnya sebenarnya mengandung script yang tersembunyi yang akan berjalan begitu Anda membuka atau membacanya (atau bisa juga melalui preview pane, jika Anda menggunakan Outlook dengan versi Internet Explorer yang cocok). Virus jenis ini akan merubah setting pada komputer Anda dan mengirimkan virus kepada user lain melalui e-mail. Pihak Microsoft sudah mengeluarkan patch untuk masalah ini. Untuk mengetahui patch apa saja yang Anda perlukan, maka silakan kunjungi situs http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/. Untuk mengikuti perkembangan security pada sistem operasi Windows dan juga aplikasinya, silakan saja ikuti mailing list mereka di www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/notify.asp.

Internet worms
Anda akan sangat berisiko jika terhubung ke internet, bahkan jika Anda tidak membuka e-mail sekalipun. Internet worm dapat menjangkiti komputer Anda yang terhubung pada jaringan dengan cara memanfaatkan kelemahan pada sistem operasi Anda. Worm Blaster contohnya, memanfaatkan kelemahan yang ada pada service Remote Procedure Call (RPC) yang ada pada Windows NT, 2000 dan XP. Worm ini memanfaatkan tersebut untuk melakukan propagasi dengan cara meng-copy-kan dirinya sendiri ke komputer yang lainnya. Ketika worm tersebut menyebarkan dirinya, maka ini akan menimbulkan trafik pada jaringan yang sangat besar yang pada akhirnya akan memperlambat jaringan komputer Anda atau bahkan membuat komputer Anda menjadi crash. Worm ini juga membuat komputer-komputer yang terinfeksi tadi untuk bersama-sama mengadakan koneksi ke situs Microsoft sehingga membuat situs tersebut sulit diakses oleh orang lain karena mengalami overload. Microsoft (dan juga vendor sistem operasi lainnya) mengeluarkan patch untuk memperbaiki kelemahan-kelemahan yang ada pada software mereka. Anda sebaiknya mengikuti perkembangan security produk-produk mereka dengan cara secara reguler mengunjungi website vendor tersebut untuk mendapatkan informasinya.

Dapatkah saya mendapatkan virus dari suatu situs?
Suatu situs biasanya ditulis dengan memanfaatkan kode HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). Ini tidak akan membawa virus, meskipun ia dapat juga memanggil program atau file yang dapat melakukannya. Anda tidak akan terinfeksi oleh virus gara-gara Anda mengakses halaman web yang murni berbasis HTML.

Backdoor trojan
Backdoor trojan adalah suatu program yang membolehkan seseorang untuk mengambil alih kontrol terhadap suatu komputer melalui internet. Backdoor trojan akan nampak seperti program yang normal dan kelihatannya tidak mengganggu Anda. Tetapi begitu Anda menjalankan program yang berisi backdoor ini, maka dia akan menjalankan fungsi-fungsi tersembunyi yang tidak disadari oleh pengguna komputer. Backdoor trojan saat ini bisa dikatakan sedang trend di internet, bahkan viruspun dapat meletakkan suatu backdoor trojan pada suatu komputer. Begitu pertama kali backdoor trojan dijalankan, maka biasanya dia akan menambahkan dirinya pada bagian startup di komputer tersebut sehingga backdoor trojan ini akan selalu dijalankan ketika komputer dinyalakan kembali. Si pengirim backdoor trojan ini bisa melihat komputer mana saja yang mengandung backdoor dan dia dapat terhubung ke komputer tersebut tanpa disadari oleh pengguna komputer disana. Setelah terhubung dengan komputer yang sudah terinfeksi backdoor trojan ini, maka si pengirim backdoor trojan akan dapat melakukan berbagai hal, seperti menjalankan aplikasi, mengakses file personal Anda, memodifikasi file atau meng-upload file, merekam keystroke keyboard Anda atau bahkan menggunakan komputer Anda untuk mengirimkan e-mail spam kepada orang lain. Beberapa backdoor trojan yang sudah kita kenal adalah Subseven, BackOrifice dan Graybird yang sering dianggap sebagai patch untuk memperbaiki worm Blaster.

Spyware
Spyware adalah suatu aplikasi yang memungkinkan para pemasang iklan untuk mendapatkan informasi mengenai kebiasaan pengguna komputer dimana spyware tersebut terpasang. Progam spyware ini sebenarnya bukanlah suatu virus. Anda tidak dapat menyebarkannya ke komputer yang lain. Tetapi spyware terkadang memiliki efek-efek lain yang tidak terduga.

Anda bisa saja mendapatkan spyware ketika Anda mengakses suatu situs tertentu. Suatu pesan pop-up biasanya akan muncul dan menyuruh Anda untuk mendownload program yang "kelihatannya" Anda butuhkan, atau terkadang program spyware ini bisa secara otomatis terdownload tanpa Anda sadari.

Spyware akan jalan di komputer Anda dan akan mencatat semua aktivitas Anda (misalnya mencatat situs apa saja yang Anda kunjungi) dan akan melaporkannya kepada pihak lain, dalam hal ini pihak pemasang iklan. Efek lainnya adalah mengganti halaman home pada web browser Anda dengan suatu alamat situs tertentu atau bahkan juga ada yang memiliki efek untuk men-dial modem ke nomor 0900 (premium call).

Aktivitas spyware ini jelas akan memakan resource pada komputer Anda dan dapat memperlambat performa dari komputer Anda. Beberapa software anti-spyware saat ini sudah dapat mendeteksi adanya spyware pada komputer Anda dan bisa menghilangkannya secara otomatis. Contohnya adalah fitur anti-spyware pada aplikasi System Mechanic.

cookies?
Jika Anda mengunjungi suatu situs, maka situs tersebut dapat meletakkan suatu paket data kecil yang sering disebut dengan cookie pada komputer Anda. Ini akan membuat situs tersebut untuk mengingat informasi detail mengenai Anda dan juga bisa mendeteksi kunjungan Anda ke situs tersebut di kemudian hari.

Cookie tidak mengandung ancaman bagi data di komputer Anda, tetapi sebaliknya cookie bisa mengganggu konfidensial dan privacy Anda. Jika Anda ingin tetap bersifat anonymous, maka silakan set browser Anda untuk selalu men-disable cookies.

telepon seluler Dapat terkena virus
Telepon seluler dapat terinfeksi oleh virus worm yang menyebarkan dirinya melalui jaringan telepon seluler, meskipun sampai tulisan ini diturunkan belum begitu banyak risiko yang ditimbulkannya. Pada tahun 2004, worm pada telepon seluler pertama kali ditemukan. Worm Cabir-A ini menyerang telepon seluler yang menggunakan sistem operasi Symbian. Worm ini menyebarkan dirinya sendiri dan nampak seperti game dengan format file SIS. Jika Anda menjalankan file ini, maka akan muncul pesan pada layar dan worm akan jalan setiap kali Anda menyalakan telepon seluler. Cabir-A akan mencari telepon seluler lain di sekitarnya dengan memanfaatkan teknologi Bluetooth dan akan mengirimkan dirinya sendiri ke telepon seluler tersebut. Worm ini membuktikan kepada publik bahwa infeksi virus pada telepon seluler sudah terjadi dan wajib diwaspadai.

Ada juga virus konvensional yang mengirimkan pesan ke telepon seluler. Contohnya Timo-A, yang menggunakan modem komputer untuk mengirimkan SMS ke nomor telepon seluler tertentu. Tetapi virus ini tidak sampai menginfeksi atau merusak telepon seluler. Sampai tulisan ini dipublikasikan, memang virus pada telepon seluler belumlah begitu banyak. Ini disebabkan karena banyaknya sistem operasi yang ada dan juga karena karakteristik baik software maupun device yang cepat berubah.

Risiko Bluetooth
Bluetooth merupakan teknologi untuk piranti nirkabel yang memungkinkan komputer, telepon seluler, PDA dan lain sebagainya untuk saling terhubung dalam suatu jarak tertentu. Bluetooth mampu untuk mengadakan koneksi antar peralatan-peralatan tersebut secara transparan. Saat ini Bluetooth juga sudah dieksploitasi oleh worm pada telepon seluler. Bluetooth digunakan sebagai media untuk penyebaran worm ke telepon seluler yang lain.

Teknologi yang berbasis Bluetooth, seperti Jini, juga mampu melakukan kontrol jarak jauh terhadap suatu service. Bluetooth dan Jini didesain bahwa hanya kode yang valid dan terpercaya saja yang mampu untuk membawa operasi-operasi yang sifatnya sensitif. Tetapi teknologi-teknologi tersebut juga membuka peluang bagi kode-kode jahat yang mengganggu jalannya service tersebut.

Anda dapat mencegah risiko Bluetooth ini dengan cara mematikan setting Bluetooth "visible to others" pada telepon seluler Anda.

Dapatkah palmtop atau PDA terkena virus?
Palmtop, handheld atau PDA membuka peluang bagi virus untuk diserang, walaupun saat ini belum banyak ditemukan gangguan yang ada. PDA atau palmtop berjalan dengan suatu sistem operasi seperti Palm, Symbian, Linux atau PocketPC. Ini bisa dimanfaatkan oleh worm untuk diserang tetapi saat ini risiko tersebut masih belum begitu terlihat.

Para pembuat virus tampaknya lebih tertarik mentargetkan sistem komputer desktop untuk virus yang dibuatnya. Ini disebabkan karena pengguna komputer desktop saat ini lebih populer dan juga penyebaran virus bisa sangat cepat dengan adanya e-mail dan internet. Mungkin bahaya pada palmtop saat ini adalah mereka digunakan sebagai carrier bagi worm. Begitu Anda melakukan sinkronisasi palmtop atau PDA Anda dengan komputer maka worm tadi akan menyebar ke PC Anda dan melakukan aksinya. Untuk mencegah hal ini maka gunakan selalu anti-virus yang definisi virusnya selalu terupdate.

Makalah ini saya ambil dari browsing internet बागी अंडा यांग मेरासा सुदः मेलिहात सीता मोहों माफ़ .
Wassalamualaikum wr,wb