Malicious Mobile Code

Summary

Being familiar with the different Windows architectures will help you to remove the other forms of malicious code covered in Chapter 5 to Chapter 12. In this chapter we’ve learned that flexibility and worldwide adoption of Windows has opened our PCs to all sorts of malicious mobile code. We also learned that the programming intricacies prevented virus writers from writing Windows-specific viruses for many years, but the learning curve is all but gone. Not only do we have to worry about all new sorts of code attacks, but decade-old DOS viruses can still disable even our toughest platforms. Disabling booting from drive A will do a lot to prevent boot sector viruses from causing damage, especially on NT platforms. Running a reputable virus scanner and knowing what should be running in memory on a particular machine is the best prevention against Windows viruses. Microsoft, with its latest version releases, is finally getting serious about the threat present by malicious mobile code. Chapter 5 will cover the world of macro viruses.