Viruses - Boot Sector - PC Died With Its Boots On
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A fundamental definition of a virus is a program or unsolicited program that changes data on a computer without consent.
Some common examples of what damage a virus can do are:
- Erase/delete files
- Copy data
- Steal data via e-mail
- Change files and data
- Deny/change access
- Jokes/pranks
- Bombard or attack Web servers
- Play messages
- Corrupt/change computer settings
- Corrupt/change BIOS [Basic Input/Output System]
DoS [Denial of Service] and other Web site attacks are reviewed under DoS and NIDS [Network Intrusion Detection Systems].
One of the first, most prevalent and most damaging viruses is a Boot Sector virus which replaces the valid boot sector program with a substitute that can corrupt the FAT [File Allocation Table]. This process can cause loss of some or all files.
The MBR [Master Boot Record] is the first sector (0) of the hard drive. Called a Boot Sector when booting (starting-loading) from a floppy disk, this Sector contains a loader program (such as command.com in MS-DOS [MicroSoft Disk Operating System]). There are many different kinds of boot configurations. The MBR contains the hard disk volume or partition information, the FAT and error checking information. FAT is a table, list, or map of all clusters on the disk, showing assignments of specific files.
- Each entry corresponds to a Cluster number.
- Each cluster contains one or more sectors.
- Each FAT file is represented in the FAT as a linked list or cluster chain.
- FAT types are based on their file size.
- FAT-12-bit name, FAT-16-bit name, FAT-32-bit name.
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Tags: techtionary, virus, dos, nids, mbr
