UNDERSTANDING COMPUTER VIRUS AS PERCIEVED

BY INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION

TECHNOLOGY GRADE-11 STUDENTS OF

SOUTH EAST ASIA INSTITUTE OF

TRADE AND TECHNOLOGY

QUEZON CITY BRANCH

S.Y. 2019- 2020

A Research Presented to the Faculty of Senior High School

South East Asia Institute of Trade and Technology

Fairview, Quezon City

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Information and

Communication Technology Strand in

Practical Research 2

By

Adriane De La Cruz, LPT

August 2019
 Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

This chapter includes the background of the study, the statement of the problem, the

significance of the study, scope and delimitation of the study, definition of operational terms, and

endnotes for chapters one.

Background of the Study

Researchers study entitled “Computer virus literacy and knowledge among the Grade 11

Information and Communication Technology of South East Asia Institute of trade and

Technology” By basic assumption, some of the ICT students are not aware what is computer

virus and how does the virus affect their computer. Researchers wanted to tackle about computer

virus as expected of the topic is not yet conducted in the school of South East Asia Institute of

Trade and Technology. These said assumption and expectation gives fuel to the curiosity of

researchers to make a clear study of computer virus.

A computer virus, much like a flu virus, is designed to spread from host to host and has

the ability to replicate itself. Similarly, in the same way that flu viruses cannot reproduce without

a host cell, computer viruses cannot reproduce and spread without programming such as a file or
document. In more technical terms, a computer virus is a type of malicious code or program

written to alter the way a computer operates and is designed to spread from one computer to

another. A virus operates by inserting or attaching itself to a legitimate program or document that

supports macros in order to execute its code. In the process, a virus has the potential to cause

unexpected or damaging effects, such as harming the system software by corrupting or

destroying data. (Norton, 2019).

Computer viruses have been around for quite a bit and nearly all of them have been

spread through the Internet or its predecessors. Most viruses have been designed to steal users’

information, processing power and/or disable the system all together. The first computer virus,

called “Creeper system”, was an experimental self-replicating virus released in 1971. It was

filling up the hard drive until a computer could not operate any further. This virus was created by

BBN technologies in the US. The first computer virus for MS-DOS was “Brain” and was

released in 1986. It would overwrite the boot sector on the floppy disk and prevent the computer

from booting. It was written by two brothers from Pakistan and was originally designed as a

copy protection. “The Morris” was the first Computer virus which spread extensively in the wild

in 1988. It was written by Robert Morris, a graduate student from Cornell University who

wanted to use it to determine the size of the internet. His approach used security holes in send

mail and other Unix applications as well as weak passwords, but due to a programming mistake

it spread too fast and started to interfere with the normal operation of the computers. It infected

around 15,000 computers in 15 hours, which back then was most of the internet. Since then,

many new viruses have been introduced and the trend is growing exponentially every year.

(Uhde, 2017)
 There have been many cyber-attacks in the past decade. With use of latest techniques and

coding, hacking and cyber-threats have become much easy and common. The only thing with the

evolution of cyber-attacks is that they have become more dangerous and threatening like never.

They can take out any bit of information from the system if they need to. But, all we can do is sit

and wait for it to happen. This is because we aren’t aware of the current computer viruses

surfacing online in market. And we aren’t even aware of the practices that we should follow to

stay safe and secure. (Tweak Library Team, 2019)

A new crypto virus called "B0r0nt0K" has been putting Linux and possibly Windows

Web servers at risk of encrypting all of the infected domain's files. The new ransom ware threat

and the ransom of 20 bitcoins (about US$75,000) first came to light last week, based on a post on

Bleeping Computer's user forum. A client's website had all its files encrypted and renamed with

the rontok extension appended to them, the forum user indicated. The website was running on

Ubuntu 16.04. The B0r0nt0K ransom note is not displayed in a text format or in the message

itself, based on the report. Instead, the screen display on the infected system links to the ransom

ware developer's website, which delivers details of the encryption and the payment demand. The

display includes a personal ID required for logging onto the site. (Germain, 2019)

MANILA, Philippines — as systems go digital and more high-tech, businesses and

organizations around the world have become more vulnerable to cyber -attacks. Businesses in the

Philippines are even more at risk. Microsoft ranked PH as the 8th most vulnerable country to

malware across the Asia Pacific, and the 10th most attacked country on the internet worldwide

according to FBI.
As if these statistics aren’t alarming enough, there are only 84 Filipino Certified Information

System Security Professionals and half of them are working overseas. The Philippines is now

more vulnerable than ever and the burden is on business leaders and decision-makers.

Fortunately, there are ways to protect yourself and your business. One is by looking at previous

cyber -attacks, observing the patterns and ways they have affected companies, and coming up

with a plan on how to address it in case something similar hits. (Zinampan, 2018)

Statement of the Problem

The purpose of this descriptive study is to elucidate the computer virus literacy and

knowledge among the Grade 11 Information Communication and Technology students of South

East Institute of Trade and Technology during the school year 2019- 2020.

Precisely, the study direct to answer the following questions:

1. Had you ever experienced a virus threats in your computer?

2. How you often do you experienced a computer virus?

3. What are the effects of the computer virus to your computer?

4. What did you do to eradicate the computer virus in your computer?

5. Are you aware towards the anti-virus function and capabilities?

Significance of the study

 The result of the study is advantageous to the following:

To the Students - As an Information and communication Technology Students computer

is always used because it is the main instrument of our strand to explore for something new and

learn things. Learning computer virus and having knowledge about it will be an advantage to you

as an ICT student to protect your computer and to know what to do if you encounter a computer

virus.

To the Administrator - The school itself South East Asia Institute of trade and

Technology will be benefit in the result of this study, because inside the computer laboratory,

faculty, and office used the computer to store documents, file important documents (including

the confidential documents), Information of the students, grade sheets and etc… The study will

help the school on how to protect the security of important and confidential documents against

the computer virus.

To the Teachers - For the Teachers, computer and laptops are important to facilitate

their works. This study will be benefit them to protect their important documents that helps them

the most in daily life against the computer virus.

To the future researchers - In this study, future researcher will help them to have ideas

and information about the topic of the study. They can search for the reference that used in the

study.
Scope and Delimitation

This study is focused on the Computer virus literacy and knowledge among Grade 11

Information Communication and Technology students in South East Asia institute of Trade and

Technology during the first semester of school year 2019-2020. ICT were chosen as the research

participants since as mentioned in an article of (Nucum 2018) K-12 Technical Vocational and

Livelihood Track series. ICT strand is designed to provide you with the technical skills and

knowledge in using tools and equipment.

Definition of Operational Terms

The following definitions are provided to ensure uniformity and understanding of

this terms throughout the study. The researcher developed all definitions not accompanied by a

citation.

Cyber - It means relating to or characteristic of information technology, virtual reality,

and computers.

Encrypt - Encrypt is widely used on the internet to protect user information being sent

between a browser and a server, including passwords, payment information and other personal

information that should be considered private.

Execute - Execute are terms that describe the process of running a

computer software program or command.

 Macro -A macro (which stands for "macroinstruction") is a programmable pattern which

translates a certain sequence of input into a preset sequence of output. Macros can be used to

make tasks less repetitive by representing a complicated sequence of keystrokes, mouse

movements, commands, or other types of input.

Malware - Malware or malicious software, is any program or file that is harmful to a

computer user.

Predecessor - Predecessor is a person who has previously occupied a position or office

to which another has succeeded

 End notes in Chapter 1

Germain, J. M, (2019), B0r0nt0K Ransomware Threatens Linux Servers, Retrieved on

September

3, 2019 https://www.linuxinsider.com/story/85870.html?fbclid=IwAR3HCrrUgCS-

gZ0R1TLO1S8WsAstcC5R6V9BxUVncGnUunzvPKSBUz26DOg.

Norton (2019) What is a computer virus?

Retrived on September 6, 2019 https://us.norton.com/internetsecurity-malware-what-

is-a-computer-virus.html

Nucum 2018 K-12 TVL Track Series: Information and Communication Technology Strand

Retrieved on September 6, 2019 https://blog.edukasyon.ph/senior-high/k-12-tvl-track-

series-information-and-communication-technology-strand/

Tweak library team (2019) Cyber Threat: Latest Computer Virus In 2019

Retrieved on, September 6, 2019 https://tweaklibrary.com/cyber-threat-latest-computer-

virus/?fbclid=IwAR3CDTuo0GtFXnIDrS-

OGbNmTje0SUtWU9MzvtjlUnQR91rxM438QYUqoDw

Uhde, A. (2017) A short history of computer viruses Retrieved on September 3, 2019

https://content.sentrian.com.au/blog/a-short-history-of-computer-

viruses#targetText=A%20short%20history%20of%20computer%20viruses&targetText=
 The%20first%20computer%20virus%2C%20called,BBN%20technologies%20in%20the

%20US.

Zinampan, T. 2018 A look back on the cyberattacks that threatened PH businesses Retrieved on

September 6, 2019 https://www.rappler.com/brandrap/tech-and-innovation/195936-

philippine-cyberattacks-protect-

2018?fbclid=IwAR0Lk5gJmLtgMNGY9kp6Ba8AjNw4keyQ_mqPvE-

bNO5d8klJBYk4UHjs5nE