Page 1466 - (ISC)² CISSP Certified Information Systems Security Professional Official Study Guide

Changes in the social media landscape have simply changed the way
these hoaxes circulate. In addition to email messages, malware hoaxes

now circulate via Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Snapchat, and other
social media and messaging platforms.

For more information on this topic, the myth-tracking website Snopes
maintains a virus hoax list at https://www.snopes.com/tag/virus-
hoaxes-realities/.

Logic Bombs

Logic bombs are malicious code objects that infect a system and lie
dormant until they are triggered by the occurrence of one or more
conditions such as time, program launch, website logon, and so on.
The vast majority of logic bombs are programmed into custom-built
applications by software developers seeking to ensure that their work
is destroyed if they unexpectedly leave the company.

Like all malicious code objects, logic bombs come in many shapes and

sizes. Indeed, many viruses and Trojan horses contain a logic bomb
component. The famous Michelangelo virus caused a media frenzy
when it was discovered in 1991 because of the logic bomb trigger it
contained. The virus infected a system’s master boot record through
the sharing of infected floppy disks and then hid itself until March 6—

the birthday of the famous Italian artist Michelangelo Buonarroti. On
that date, it sprang into action, reformatting the hard drives of
infected systems and destroying all the data they contained.

More recently, a logic bomb targeted organizations in South Korea in
March 2013. This malware infiltrated systems belonging to South
Korean media companies and financial institutions and caused both
system outages and the loss of data. In this case, the malware attack

triggered a military alert when the South Korean government
suspected that the logic bomb was the prelude to an attack by North
Korea.

Trojan Horses

System administrators constantly warn computer users not to

download and install software from the internet unless they are