A lot of you will remember the Melissa virus, but did you know that Melissa was a @mm? A what? That’s just a more technical way of saying Melissa was a mass-mailer, it sent itself to everyone in your address book. @mm is part of the Virus Naming Convention. Yes, viruses are now so much a part of our lives that somewhere, some poor soul or souls have to sit around and waste their days coming up with naming standards for them. But, I digress…

These naming conventions come in handy when you have discovered a virus on your system. Your anti-virus software starts it’s bleeping or flashing or whatever it does to try to get your attention and it tells you that you’ve got W32.Klez.H@mm. The prefix is the first part of the virus name, in this case W32, which will tell you what type of bug you’ve been infected with or it’s target. W32 stands for a 32-bit binary aimed at Windows machines. The next part is the actual name of the virus, in this case Klez. The suffix comes next and it usually gives you some idea of the virus’ behavior or how it’s related to other viruses like in a family (yes, just like a family, these are the idiot cousins nobody wants!). Some suffixes include letters or numbers that express the variant of the virus, like a version number in software. Sometimes there’s no suffix at all.

Some of the most common prefixes, besides W32 explained above, are Backdoor which lets someone access your computer via the internet and DDos and Dos which are Denial of Service attacks and are usually aimed at big web sites. Some of the most common suffixes, besides @mm explained above, are @m which is a mailer which attaches itself to email you send and Worm which is technically not a virus but makes copies of itself and spreads via networks, email, and more. There’s a pretty good list of virus naming convention prefixes and suffixes on the Symantec site at http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/vnameinfo.html in case you ever need to look one up.

How does this does help you? I’m not sure. But, the better informed you are before going into battle, the better your chance of victory! Remember to keep your anti-virus and anti-spyware software up to date! And, be careful out there!