Utility Software: Enhancing Efficiency and Functionality 👈
Utility programs help manage, maintain and control computer resources. These
programs are available to help you with the day-to-day chores associated with
personal computing and to keep your system running at peak performance.
Some of utility programs are discussed below:
Anti Software Evolution -virus software-
Computer viruses are software programs that are deliberately designed to interfere
with computer operation; record, corrupt, or delete data; or spread themselves to
other computers and throughout the Internet. Virus Scanning Software are utility
programs designed to protect your computer from computer viruses, worms and
trojan horses.
To help prevent the most current viruses, you must update your antivirus software
regularly. You can set up most types of antivirus software to update
automatically.
Most anti-virus programs use one of the following techniques to identify viruses:
1. Signature based detection: This is the most common method. It compares
the contents of the infected file to a known pattern of data. Because viruses
can embed themselves in existing files, the entire file is searched.
2. Heuristic-based detection: This method is primarily used to identify
unknown viruses by looking for malicious code or variations of such code.
3. File emulation: This is another heuristic approach in which the infected
program is run in a virtual environment and the actions it performs are
recorded. The actions are analyzed to check for any malicious actions and
carry out disinfection actions accordingly.
No matter how useful antivirus software can be, these can sometimes have some
drawbacks.
- Antivirus software can impair a computer's performance. Active anti-virus programs can cause conflicts with other programs.
- A "false positive" is when antivirus software identifies a non-malicious file as a virus. When this happens, it can cause serious problems. For example, if an antivirus program is configured to immediately delete infected files, a false positive in a essential file can render the operating system or some applications unusable.
- Most popular anti-virus programs are not very effective against new viruses. The reason for this is that the virus designers test their new viruses on the major anti-virus applications to make sure that they are not detected before releasing them into the market
- Some apparent antivirus programs are actually malware being sold as legitimate software, such as Win Fixer and MS Antivirus.
- Some commercial antivirus software agreements include a clause that the subscription will be automatically renewed. For example, McAfee requires users to unsubscribe at least 60 days before the expiration of the present subscription. Norton Antivirus also renews subscriptions automatically by default.
- Finally, antivirus software generally runs at the highly trusted kernel level of the operating system, creating a potential avenue of attack.
Backup utilities
Backup refers to making copies of data so that these additional copies may be
used to restore the original after a data loss event. All types of data could be
backed up like pictures, word documents, files, executables or an entire database.
The main purpose is to recover data in the event of data loss or data getting
corrupt. Other purpose could be to recover historical data.
A number of Backup software are available that assist you in taking backup of
your important data on the computer. Selecting between various back-up software
is not only a based on the cost but also on the software that meeting the
requirements.
A backup software could allow automated scheduling of backup in addition to just
creating copy of files. The software should be easy to install and maintain. It
should be intuitive and easy to use. The restoring from the back-up should be
simple. Accessing restored data should be automatic, and the backup should
preserve original data files and paths. A backup software that can compress data
helps in storing data in lesser space. Certain software also allows securing the
backed-up data with passwords and encryption. Good documentation and
technical support goes a long way in ensuring help is available when needed.
Backup could be taken on variety of media including hard drive, CDs, DVDs,
floppy disks etc. It could also be taken on FTP locations, tape or online servers. A
number of free and proprietary back-up software are available including those
from Microsoft, Symantec, Apple, IBM, and Norton.
It is important to take backup of important data regularly and also verify that it
can be restored successfully.
Diagnose program
A diagnostic program is a program written for the purpose of locating problems
with the software, hardware, or both, or a network of systems. A diagnostic
program provides solutions to the user to solve issues.
In practical experience, these tools do not usually identify the exact cause of the
system problem, but they often provide some information about what is in the
system and how it is working. Some of these are free or are included with
common operating systems at no additional charge, while others are commercial
products that range from affordable to rather pricey.
Here are some common software diagnostic tools.
- Power-On Self Test (POST) : This isn't a separate diagnostic utility; it is in fact built into your system BIOS and it runs every time you start up your PC automatically. It is often the best indicator of system problems. Don't disable its error-reporting functions unless you really need to.
- MEM.EXE : This simple utility, built into Windows operating system that provides you with details about your memory configuration, as well as what is currently using your memory.
- Microsoft Diagnostics : Better known as "MSD.EXE", this is a small DOS utility that takes a brief inventory of the contents of your PC and shows them to you in a text-based format. This is very useful for seeing what disks are in the system, how much memory is installed, and also for checking system resource usage. It will show you what type of BIOS you are using.
- The Windows Device Manager : This is the most useful tool for identifying system configuration and resource usage information.
- Norton System Information : This utility is similar to the Microsoft Diagnostics, only more detailed in its later versions. SI shows a great deal of information about what is in the PC, going well beyond what MSD gives you, but really is still an information utility as opposed to a true diagnostic. This program is part of Symantec's Norton Utilities.
- Microsoft ScanDisk and Norton Disk Doctor : These programs are used to check for hard disk problems. This includes file system corruption and hard disk read errors. They should be used when hard disk problems are suspected.
- Scandisk is a utility provided with Windows computers. Scandisk scans your disks to see if there are any potential problems on the disk, such as bad disk areas. Since disks are magnetic media, all disks, including your hard drive can be corrupted
- Microsoft Disk Defragmenter software assists you in keep reorganizing your disk drives. After files are saved, deleted and resaved again, the disk can become fragmented --- available space is in small blocks located throughout the disk. Disk defragmenters gather those free spots and put them together to enable you to continue to save your data in the most efficient manner.
- Norton Diagnostics : This utility is meant to go beyond the System Information program and actually perform tests on the hardware to identify problems. It includes tests of the processor and motherboard and system memory, and will identify some types of resource conflicts. In reality, it is still quite limited in terms of the numbers of problems it will find.
- QAPlus : QAPlus from DiagSoft is a more advanced diagnostic suite that comes in several flavours, depending on what you need to do and how you want to do it. This is a more expensive package but can give you much more detailed information about your system and help identify problem situations as well.
File view programs
File view utilities let you see the contents of a wide variety of documents even
when you don't have the application on your system.
A file viewer is limited-functionality software it does not have a capability to
create a file, or modify the content of an existing one. Instead, it is used only to
display or print the content. File viewers do not edit files, but they are able to save
data in a different file format.
All the fundamental types of file viewers are filters which translate binary files
into plain text (one example antiword). Another common type of file viewer is a
picture viewer that can display picture files of various formats. Common features
here are thumbnail preview and creation, and image zooming.
The primary reason behind limited functionality is marketing and control. For
example, a popular software program, Adobe Acrobat, can be used to create
content for most computer platforms, under various operating systems. To ensure
that people can access the documents created with Adobe Acrobat, the software
publisher created a viewer program, the Acrobat Reader, and made it available for
free. This viewer application allows the content created by the proprietary
authoring software to be readable on all supported operating-system platforms,
free of charge, thus making it a more attractive solution.
There are many products which can qualify as a file viewer: Microsoft Word
viewer or Microsoft PowerPoint viewer, and the Open Office equivalents are
examples. In a sense, a web browser is a type of file viewer, which translates, or
renders, the HTML markups into a human-friendly presentation. Although HTML
is plain text, viewing an HTML file in a browser and in a text editor produces
significantly different results
Google Docs is another very good example of online file viewer. Google Docs
Viewer supports 12 new file types in, including all remaining Microsoft Office
file types, Apple's Pages format, and Adobe's Photoshop and Illustrator files.
Computer performance enhancement utilities
A number of utilities are available to improve the overall performance of the
computer system by letting you speed up your system or increase storage space.
These utilities range from those that come packaged with the operating system or
can be purchased separately.
Disk defragmenter utility reorganizes non contiguous files into contiguous files
and optimizes their placement on the hard drive for increased reliability and
performance.
There are many hardware and software accelerators available to enhance
performance in a particular area. For example, download accelerators are software
tools to increase the download speed, while graphic accelerators are coprocessors
that assist in drawing graphics.
The Windows registry can quickly become crowded and hence slower to search
when you remove unused programs that do not uninstall properly. There are
utilities like Registry Mechanic or Registry Clean Expert that can help clean
Windows registry to improve performance.
1.6 PERVERSE SOFTWARE
Perverse software is a program which causes hindrances in other programs
execution in such a way resulting in modification or complete destruction of data
without the user's intention or even sabotaging the operational system.
Perverse Software is also known as Malicious software or malware. It is a type of
software that is designed to secretly access a computer system, without the
owner‘s consent, and damage the system. The impact can be as damaging as
shutting down a business, pulling down computer network or significantly
impacting regular use of individual computer systems etc. The damage done can
vary from something as little as changing the author's name in a document to full
control of one‘s machine without the ability to easily find out.
Most malware requires the user to initiate its operation. For example, sending
infectious attachments (it acts when users downloads them and runs the
attachment) in e-mails, browsing a malicious website that installs software after
the user clicks ok on a pop-up, and from vulnerabilities in the operating system.
Early infectious programs, such as Internet Worm and MS DOS viruses, were
written as experiments and were largely harmless or at most annoying. With the
spread of broadband Internet access, malicious software has been designed for a
profit, for forced advertising. Here the malware keeps track of user‘s web
browsing, and pushes related advertisements.
Typical types of malicious software are - Computer virus, Computer Worm,
Trojan horse, Rootkits, Spyware etc.
Here is brief information about the various types of malware:
Computer Virus
Computer virus is a small software program that is designed to enter a computer
without users‘ permission or knowledge, to interfere with computer operation and
to spread from one computer to another. A computer virus needs to attach itself to
a document or program to infect other computers or programs.
Some viruses do little but replicate while others can cause severe harm or
adversely effect program and performance of the system. They can destroy files,
software, program applications, and cause the loss of data.
There are various types of computer virus that can be classified by their origins,
techniques of attack, modes of spreading, forms of infections, hiding locations
and the kind of damage caused. Examples of computer viruses are: Randex,
Melissa.A and Trj.Reboot
Computer Worm
Computer Worm is a program that is very similar to a virus. It has ability to self
replicate. It actively spreads itself over the network, copies itself from one disk
drive to another or copies using email. It does not need user action to start it
unlike virus. Examples of worms include: PSWBugbear.B, Lovgate.F, Trile.C, Sobig.D, Mapson.
Trojan Horse
When a program is disguised as something interesting and desirable, users are
tempted to download and install it on their machine, without knowing what it
does. This is when it does the damages by deleting files from the system or by
further installing unwanted software. This is the typical technique of Trojan horse.
For example, a file called "saxophone.wav file" on the computer of user who's
interested in collecting sound samples may actually be a Trojan Horse. Trojan
Horses unlike viruses do not reproduce by infecting other files, nor do they selfreplicate like worms, but they are extremely dangerous to users computer's
security and personal privacy. They make a computer susceptible to malicious
intruders by allowing them to access and read files.
Rootkits
This is a technique using which the malware remains concealed in the system, and
continues to do the damage in a concealed manner. Rootkits can prevent a
malicious process from being visible (ex Task Bar in Windows operating system) in the list of running applications. Rootkits normally attempt to allow someone to
gain control of a computer system. These programs are usually installed by
trojans and are generally disguised as operating system files.
Trap doors
This is a way of bypassing normal authentication procedure (windows/ operating
system user name and password) to access a system. Once a system is
compromised (impacted by) by malware, one or more backdoors may be installed
for easier future access to the system.
Logic Bombs/ Time Bombs
Logic Bombs are not programs in their own right but rather camouflaged
segments of other programs. They are not considered viruses because they do not
replicate. But their objective is to destroy data on the computer once certain
conditions have been met. Logic bombs go undetected until launched, and the
results can be destructive. For example, some malicious programs are sot off
during days such as April Fools Day or Friday the 13th
Spyware
While so far we have discussed the malware‘s intent to damage the computer
system, spyware is designed for commercial gain. These programs gather
information about the user in a concealed manner, show pop-up advertisements,
redirects the search engine results to paid advertisements etc.
Keystroke loggers
This is a program, once installed on the system, which intercepts the keys when
entering the password or the Credit Card number while shopping online. This can
be used for Credit Card fraud.
Data-stealing
This is a web threat that results in stealing of personal and proprietary information
to be used for commercial gains either directly or via underground distribution.
Some popular examples of recent data-stealing cases are – steal and sell large
number of credit card numbers from businesses such as TJX, OfficeMax, Sports
Authority etc.
1.6.1 Ways to Counter Perverse Software
Some common ways of countering Malware are as following:
- Ensure that the operating system and any program one uses are up to date with patches/updates.
- Block unwanted email viruses by installing a spam filter and spam blocker.
- When browsing the internet, always watch what one clicks and installs. Do not simply click OK to dismiss pop-up windows.
- Install anti-virus software; scan and update regularly. It can, in most cases, remove and prevent viruses, worms, trojans, and (depending on the software) some spyware.
- Install anti-spyware/anti-adware; scan and update regularly. It will remove and (depending on the software) prevent future adware and spyware.
