Malicious Mobile Code

What This Book Doesn’t Cover

In the bigger scheme of computer security, malicious mobile code is just a part. Microsoft Windows running on a PC is but one of a myriad of operating system choices. There are many more other types of security threats than I can adequately cover. The following PC security topics are not covered in this book:

Non-Microsoft platforms and applications

This book only addresses threats against the IBM-compatible personal computer world, and particularly attacks against Microsoft operating systems and applications. This book focuses on DOS, Windows, Office, Outlook, and Internet Explorer. There are thousands of threats to the Macintosh, Unix, and open source world that aren’t covered here. As Linux gains in popularity, so do the number of malicious programs written for the platform. Many of the attacks mentioned here easily apply to other systems (for example, a cross-platform macro virus), but the other platforms aren’t the focus of the text.

Direct hack attacks

This book doesn’t cover security attacks directly attempted by hackers. A malicious person telnetting to port 25 to forge an email address isn’t covered in this book, but if a worm or virus does the same thing, it’s covered. This book deals with programs written to do dirty work solely by using its own prewritten code. A hacker may need to initially release his creation, but after that, the code is on its own.

Host-side attacks

With a few necessary exceptions, this book is focused on client-side attacks. ...