Recently, we received a letter from Vladivostok, full of despair, in which an entire family, from grandmother to little Nastya and Kostya, has practically not left the hospital for several months due to an intestinal infection caused by viruses. No nifuroxazides, enterosgels, smects, rehydrons and other drugs, including droppers, solve the problem. Severe vomiting, high fever, muscle and headaches, inflammation of the nasopharynx, lacrimation, photophobia, convulsions, heart pain, rapid pulse, weakness, drowsiness, diarrhea - all this literally haunts and has not let go of this family for a long time. We literally became the last hope for these people, especially after their distant relative from Moscow with similar symptoms was cured by us within one month. People were amazed that “living herbs” managed to cope with the virus!

However, in recent years, trends in the emergence of new diseases have been clearly visible, or “old” diseases are changing so much that it is necessary to carefully improve and modernize their formulation and treatment regimens, for example, as is the case with MRSA - resistant Staphylococcus aureus. The article brought to your attention may provide an answer about the reasons for the emergence of new diseases and viruses.

In mid-April 2009, virus samples from two California children suffering from influenza arrived at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta (USA) for further study. The doctors saw “something” that did not fit with the normal ideas about those specific strains of influenza that they already knew and had. After careful study and observation, a virus was discovered that had a unique genetic code different from any known human influenza virus. This was a completely new discovery for science.

But at the same time, this event marked the beginning of the 2009 swine flu pandemic. The virus, which may have started infecting people first in Mexico, has spread around the world, infecting millions of people and killing thousands. The pandemic ended by the end of August 2010.

The killer virus was a new strain of H1N1, an influenza virus involved in the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which killed 30 to 50 million people worldwide, more than died during World War I, or 2.7 to 5. 3% of the world's population.

Emergency hospitals during the 1918 influenza epidemic.

The emergence of the new H1N1 in 2009 was a reminder to people that despite advances in treating infectious diseases in recent decades, the looming shadow of deadly pandemics remains.

Every appearance of another mysterious virus causes concern and concern among scientists: once in 2002

People on the street wear masks due to the swine flu outbreak.

SARS (atypical pneumonia) in the Chinese province of Guangdong, or in 2009 swine flu which infected many people in Mexico and spread throughout the world, or more recently - 2012 MERS-CoV (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome - a viral respiratory infection that originated around the Arabian Peninsula and killed half of those people who became infected with it; because of this , and also against the backdrop of an increase in the number of deaths, the Minister of Health of Saudi Arabia was dismissed).

This 3-D model illustrates a common influenza virus (there are different types). A seasonal respiratory infection, influenza is responsible for three to five million cases of severe illness and an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 deaths, according to the World Health Organization.

Every time another mysterious virus appears, researchers are reminded of the same questions: is this the virus that will cause the next pandemic? Will humanity be able to stop him?

But now, new threatening trends are being added to the existing challenges. These are the latest UN demographic forecasts, according to which the world population will reach 9.6 billion people by mid-century, and 11 billion by 2100.

Eleven billion people. This is the number of people, according to preliminary estimates by the United Nations, that could live on Earth by the end of this century. This is 4 billion more people than are alive today. This is a staggering number compared to just 2.5 billion people who lived in 1950. These 11 billion people will leave a huge imprint on the Earth: they must all eat, they must have enough drinking water; all waste generated from their vital activity can potentially contribute to the spread of diseases; they could affect the planet's already changing climate and many of Earth's animal and plant species.

A huge number of people, their interaction with animals and different ecosystems, an increase in international trade and travel, all these factors will change the life of humanity, which is constantly faced with the problems of preventing and combating epidemics. And this is not a book theory. In fact, the unprecedented growth of the human population in the second half of the last century - growing from 2.5 billion to 6 billion - caused changes, including the emergence of new infections. Researchers have established a link between pandemic risk and population density.

Studying outbreaks of epidemics since the mid-20th century, scientists have discovered that the rate of occurrence of diseases caused by pathogenic microorganisms new to humans is in no way related to progress in diagnostic and surveillance methods, which merely record the dynamics of the emergence of more and more new diseases.

At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a scientist takes measurements of the amount of H7N9 virus that was grown and collected in the CDC laboratory.

So, between 1940 and 2004, more than 300 new infectious diseases were “recorded”.

Some of these diseases were caused by a pathogen that was present in different species and then in humans - for example, West Nile Virus, SARS coronavirus and HIV.

Coronavirus, the family of viruses to which the common cold belongs, are a group of viruses that have a corona-like (corona) appearance when viewed under an electron microscope.

Others were caused by new pathogens that evolved to negate the effects of available drugs, making diseases such as multidrug-resistant tuberculosis and malaria worse or virtually impossible to treat.

Some pathogens, such as the bacteria that cause Lyme disease, are not new to humans, but their frequency has increased dramatically, perhaps due to changes that newly arrived humans brought with them from the environment of the animal hosts of these pathogens.

Scientists are confident that more and more diseases will arise every year. One of them even joked, saying that if for most people this is something incomprehensible and abstract, then for specialists and researchers it is also completely new and unknown.

Diseases of the future are already waiting for us in nature.

When scientists analyzed the characteristics of the emerging diseases, they found some similarities between them. All known emerging diseases have been associated with sudden population growth, new human activity in the environment, and high wildlife diversity in the area where the pathogen originated. The researchers found that about two-thirds of the new diseases were transmitted to humans from animals.

More than 70% of these diseases are known as zoonotic infections (that is, infectious diseases that affect not only people, but also some species of animals from which humans become infected. A person becomes infected from sick animals either through close contact with them or by consuming food their meat, milk, as well as products made from this milk. In some cases, an infection, for example, anthrax, can be transmitted to a healthy person through objects made from the skin, bristles and hair of sick animals). For example, the Nipah virus, which causes inflammation of the brain and first appeared in 1999 in Perak, Malaysia, or the SARS coronavirus, when both hosts of the virus that infected farmers were bats.

If humans do not frequently come into contact with wildlife, then such pathogens should theoretically not represent great danger for people. But pathogens can attack humans by first infecting other animals, as humans are in contact with, for example, domestic pigs. Animals serve as the middle link in this disease chain, however, they must have been in areas that growing populations had begun to take away from wildlife, or where people rarely, if ever, ventured into such areas.

Scientists say that every region of the wild harbors a whole host of microbes, most of which we know nothing about. By building a road through a new area of ​​tropical forest, creating pig farms there, people come into contact with these pathogens.

The number of pathogens found in wildlife and capable of infecting people has increased over time and especially over the last decade of the 20th century. Such pathogens were responsible for more than half of the new infectious diseases that emerged unexpectedly during this time period.

Person's contacts with different types transmission of new viruses may increase in the future as populations grow and people seek places to live and build settlements in areas where they live, including close to wildlife.

Prediction of the future.

When the first case of HIV/AIDS was discovered in the United States in 1981, it essentially began another pandemic that continues to this day. HIV is believed to have originated in chimpanzees, infected 60 million people and killed an estimated 30 million.

Over the years, if there was complacency and thought that infectious diseases had been conquered, that was history.

The complacency that was present in the years before HIV largely no longer exists. Scientists are constantly on the lookout for the next pathogen that could cause an epidemic. One of the viruses that scientists suspected was H5N1, a strain of influenza virus that was circulating among birds and killing them. Resources dedicated to preparing for and managing an avian influenza pandemic in humans were transferred and applied to the swine influenza pandemic in 2009.

Another worrisome flu virus on the watch list is H7N9, the bird flu first detected in China in 2013. It infected a number of people who came into contact with infected birds.

How do viruses constantly change, how do they mutate, allowing them to easily spread among people?

Under an electron microscope, a flu virus is in the process of copying itself. Viral nucleoproteins (blue) encapsulate the influenza genome (green). The influenza virus polymerase (orange) reads and copies the genome.

In fact, these are the most difficult questions for scientists to find answers to, not only how viruses living in animals become capable of infecting humans, but also what makes them able to move from person to person.

The H5N1 virus, scientists believe, must undergo four mutations before it can be transmitted through the air among mammals.

Despite efforts to thoroughly study the H5N1 and H7N9 viruses, scientists still do not know how people become infected. The mechanism of infection usually begins to be investigated when the virus has already spread among people.

Scientists have found that in some parts of the world, new viruses have a high chance of “proving” themselves. Tropical Africa, Latin America and Asia with their great biodiversity and rapid development of human interaction with environment, contribute to the activation of viruses that immediately penetrate the human body. And only then, they will be able to follow the human chain to reach any point on the globe.

Epidemics can grow faster and be more costly.

Today, travelers are able to travel distances in a few hours from places that in the past would have taken months to reach. But this is a benefit not only for humans, but also for microbes. Sick travelers can be carriers and carry pathogens to their destination before they even realize they are sick. In the future, population growth and the rapid development of tourism, and this is confirmed by elementary mathematical calculations, will invariably be linked: where there are more tourists, there will be the appearance and growth of epidemics.

The emergence of SARS in China in 2002 provided a clear picture of how a virus can travel when its host is a human using modern travel communications: the virus spread rapidly throughout the world within weeks, infecting more than 8,000 people and killing about 800 before what measures were taken were taken under control and restrictions on travel and quarantine of victims were introduced.

The traveler virus can cause economic losses related to disease treatment and epidemic control. The SARS virus cost billions of dollars by reducing international travel by 50 to 70 percent and hurting businesses in several sectors. Chinese GDP growth fell 2% point in one quarter and half a percentage point in annual growth, according to World Bank data and Chinese government estimates.

Is humanity ready to face the future?

The migration of the world's population from sparsely populated rural areas to densely populated cities may also affect the spread of pathogens. By 2050, 85 percent of people in the developed world and 54 percent in so-called developing countries are expected to leave rural areas for cities.

From a global disease control perspective, urbanization may have some positive aspects. However, this will only happen if an effective surveillance and early warning system can be put in place. Concentrating populations in cities requires a stronger public health sector, as people in crowded cities are often more vulnerable to infectious diseases.

Scientists say a robust public health system is needed to respond to population growth, urbanization, an aging population and increased travel and interactions between humans and animals that lead to the emergence of new diseases.

The only source of optimism is the "tremendous progress" that has been made in reducing the amount of time it takes to get a swine flu vaccine. Less than two months after swine flu became a pandemic in 2009, vaccines were developed and mass produced.

Unfortunately, people nowadays have a false sense of security and are quite careless. After all, although it is possible to eliminate some diseases, the truth is that most new diseases are simply waiting for their time, and some letters in which people turn to us with requests for help, because standard treatment regimens no longer work, only confirm this.

In West Africa, more than 4,500 people have already become victims of Ebola. Since the beginning of October, reports of patient deaths and cases of infection with the virus have increasingly come from the United States and Europe. Where do viruses come from? Let's find out. But first, a tough report from the epicenter of the fight against Ebola.

300 pairs of gloves, 35 protective suits, goggles, surgical masks, hand sanitizers and countless rolls of duct tape - this is what Getty Images photographer Daniela Berehulaka was equipped with as he spent five long weeks in the epicenter of the Ebola virus outbreak, Monrovia, the capital. Liberia. A series of shocking images documenting the spread of the Ebola virus, which has already killed more than four thousand people, was published in the New York Times. See tragic photographs that depict the fear and suffering of people who, unfortunately, due to religious beliefs, themselves contribute to the spread of this terrible disease.

1. On August 22, 2014, photographer Daniel Berehulak arrived in Monrovia to show the world that the epidemiological situation in that region was out of control. He spent five weeks there - a very long period to work in such dangerous conditions. (Photo: Daniel Berehulak).

2. According to the photographer, most reporters come here for five to ten days, and everyone is very nervous due to the great pressure and restrictions. (Photo: Daniel Berehulak).

3. Daniel Berehulak told how he and reporter Norimitsu Onishi visited a house where a woman infected with the Ebola virus was dying, surrounded by her loved ones. She bled to death in front of everyone, but her family claimed it had nothing to do with Ebola. (Photo: Daniel Berehulak).

4. That day they visited 7 more houses where Ebola patients had died, and each time their families claimed that it was not Ebola. (Photo: Daniel Berehulak).

5. The religious beliefs of these people contribute to the spread of the virus with terrible force. (Photo: Daniel Berehulak).

6. According to the author of these images, in most cases, families do not take any precautions, and the virus is in an environment where it can easily spread, especially in Monrovia, where the population density is very high. (Photo: Daniel Berehulak).

7. Daniel Berehulak believes that the Ebola virus epidemic is out of control. (Photo: Daniel Berehulak).

8. The photographer had to strictly follow all safety rules and be very vigilant. (Photo: Daniel Berehulak).

9. The photographer also spent a lot of time in one of the Doctors Without Borders centers where local staff were trained. He observed how the staff of this non-governmental organization prepared for work in the zone increased danger. They learned to “hide any part of the body so that only the eyes were visible under protective glasses.” (Photo: Daniel Berehulak).

10. The only way to protect yourself from infection is to strictly follow all safety rules and learn to undress after returning from contaminated areas. This is the only way to reduce the risk of infection. (Photo: Daniel Berehulak).

11. After a long day of work, during which the doctors have seen many heartbreaking scenes and are very tired, they must ensure that all equipment, instruments, and equipment go through the process of washing in a chlorine solution. This is the only way to reduce the risk of contracting Ebola. (Photo: Daniel Berehulak).

12. Having visited areas infected with the Ebola virus, the photographer now understands that despite the presence of Doctors Without Borders there, many people will die there. (Photo: Daniel Berehulak).

13. The photographer sees only fleeting signs of hope that it will soon be possible to localize the outbreaks of the virus and prevent an epidemic. (Photo: Daniel Berehulak).

14. Now doctors can save only some patients, but they help the majority to die with dignity. (Photo: Daniel Berehulak).

15. Despite active work doctors in the outbreak areas, the most big problem is the denial of the local population that the Ebola virus is real. (Photo: Daniel Berehulak).

16. The treatment centers in Monrovia are overcrowded, people are dying in front of them, but at the same time they refuse to believe that it is Ebola. (Photo: Daniel Berehulak).

17. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of people infected with Ebola could reach 1.4 million by January, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"It's my duty as a photographer to help raise awareness of what a terrible situation this is," Daniel Berehulak told Time. (Photo: Daniel Berehulak).

Where do viruses come from?

Viruses are the cause of infectious diseases and epidemics. As ancient as life. They are called the cause of evolution and “the instrument of God”; they “created” man, but they can also destroy him. Especially if they are used as weapons. Viruses are ubiquitous. They are able to survive both in the depths of the ocean and at bird's eye level. They are not hampered by either high or cold temperatures. To exist, they need only one condition - someone else's life. And it doesn’t have to be a person or an animal; one cell, bacteria, or even another virus is enough, where the infectious agent can multiply.

However, none of the above hypotheses is applicable to all viruses known to man. And yet, based on the composition of some viral organisms, scientists suggest that viruses are among the most ancient organisms that originated on earth. A bitter “joke of nature” - as soon as life arose, death appeared.

And yet, some scientists see viruses not as time bombs, but as the main engine of evolution. According to the so-called “virological theory of evolution,” if not for viruses, the animal world would have remained at the level of single-celled individuals. Their merit lies in the fact that when infecting one organism, say a plant, the virus borrows genes from it and transfers it to the next living organism upon contact. And the latter are already adapting them for their own purposes. Yes, thanks viral infections, mammals have acquired a temporary organ, the placenta, which takes nutrients from the mother’s body and transfers them to the embryo. In other words, it was thanks to viruses that humans, many mammals and fish acquired the ability to bear children.

According to scientists, what was created in nature and worked well will never disappear. For example, the hemoglobin gene, which once appeared in dinosaurs, was transmitted via viruses to plants, insects, animals and, finally, humans. And it serves completely different purposes: in humans and animals to transport oxygen, in plants it is a transport protein in the roots.

Among the viruses, the most dangerous for humans is the so-called retrovirus, which infects mainly vertebrates. This is the only virus that has the ability to transfer its information from RNA to DNA and vice versa. Believing scientists dubbed it “an instrument of God,” since it was the retrovirus that was the main acting force in "viral evolution".

Ironically, it is the retrovirus that is the cause of many chronic, incurable and often fatal human diseases. The infamous HIV also belongs to this genus of organisms. Also, the “merits” of retroviruses include many cases of cancer.

Despite the fact that a virus fatal to humans can appear anytime and anywhere, there are special areas on Earth with a “favorable” environment for its spread. And recently, scientists managed to create a map of the planet’s “hot spots” where a new “plague” should appear. Basically, these are zones with a humid tropical climate: the mouth of the Niger River in Africa, Southeast Asia, and Hindustan. The situation may worsen due to the fact that it is in these areas that primary indication, identification of viruses and the development of any methods of influencing them are not actually practiced.

By the way, there is also one dangerous point on the territory of Russia - the Far Eastern regions, which have always been a hotbed of occurrence of many diseases, especially those transmitted by insects. According to researchers, Russia cannot be called a virus-safe area at all. The absence of hot spots on the territory of our country is so far only the result of the fact that Russia is in in this regard not studied.

If a person is always surrounded by deadly viruses, then how can we explain the order of epidemics? According to scientists, the causes of pandemics can be completely different: a mutating virus for which the human immune system has not had time to develop a “remedy,” or the emergence of an infection in a society that has been isolated from it for a long time. By the way, European colonists often became the cause of mass diseases among the indigenous population of the conquered territories, since they turned out to be more resistant to many viruses than the Indians and Negroids.

Another consistent cause of the largest pandemics in human history is physical and climate change. Thus, the notorious “Black Death” - bubonic and pneumonic plague, which wiped out most of the population of medieval Europe (about 60 million people) was preceded by global climatic cataclysms. In Europe, as a result of the eruption of Mount Etna in 1333, the weather was warm and damp. Several years before the great disaster began, heavy rains and floods occurred in France and Germany, accompanied by crop failure, locust infestations and livestock pestilence. Such environmental conditions created a favorable atmosphere for the life of a dangerous virus, and raging famine brought hordes of rodents - the spreaders of the disease - closer to people's homes.

Of course, such processes cannot but cause concern among virologists. The 20th and 21st centuries have already shown themselves to be “climatically unstable.” Volcanic eruptions, major floods, earthquakes, climate change and, finally, the threat of global warming - all this creates ideal conditions for the emergence of a new pandemic. AND viral activity this proves: over the past 65 years, the number of new and mutating viruses infecting humans has increased 4 times.

Epidemics have claimed more human lives than all other natural phenomena. More than war. Pandemics of plague, typhus, smallpox and cholera devastated entire territories and claimed millions of lives. Such “victorious” statistics could not help but give rise to the idea of ​​​​using viruses as biological weapons. And, despite the 1972 international convention banning the development, production and stockpiling of biological weapons, the possibility of an artificially caused epidemic today raises concerns even among experts.

And they are not groundless. For example, the smallpox virus, which today is considered destroyed in the natural environment, is still stored in laboratories in Russia and the USA. At the same time, despite the availability of a vaccine, most of the world's population is not vaccinated, since the vaccine is characterized by serious consequences. In recent years, before the virus was officially declared eradicated, more people got sick from the vaccine than from the virus.

"Doctor Virus and Mr. Hyde" (doc. film)

Just before World War II, people knew very little about viruses, but this mysterious world of microorganisms, which cause terrible epidemics, attracted our attention, and we realized that someday it would be possible to make sure that they do not cause harm. At that time, what is known about viruses now would have been considered incredible. What happened anyway? Many viruses have unusual properties, and this story begins with Epstein-Barr virus. The name of this virus is unknown to many, but nevertheless, without manifesting itself in any way, it has settled in 90% of us.

How to avoid getting infected with Ebola

It can be quite interesting to observe the attitude of users towards protecting their computer. It ranges from complete absence such - “Oh, I still don’t have anything secret!” - to a paranoid attempt to set passwords wherever there is such an opportunity and encrypt all files, including desktop pictures and executable files. Unfortunately, both methods do not give acceptable results, especially if the user does not have some knowledge about how computers work.

To begin with, a little about whether it is worth installing any kind of protection at all. In my opinion, yes. The fact is that even if you are not afraid of the theft of industrial secrets (due to your lack of any), this does not mean that your machine will not be of interest to an attacker. Firstly, your passwords for connecting to the Internet may be stolen, and you will have to pay “for yourself and for that guy.” Secondly, among the “kul hackers” there are quite a lot of vandals who enjoy the process of, say, formatting someone else’s hard drive. And thirdly, it is not at all impossible that you will bring some kind of “infection” from your home computer to work, where she will have time to do some mischief before the system administrator deals with her.

Another interesting question is whether a non-professional user can defend against an attack by a professional. Of course no. But the fact is that there are quite a few professionals, and they, as a rule, are not seduced by the “free Internet” and do not format disks just like that. Accordingly, the likelihood that you will be attacked by this legendary creature - Hacker with a capital H - is quite low. But you can protect yourself from “kul hackers”. Although having at least basic knowledge will not hurt at all...

Now about what could threaten your “iron friend”. In principle, there are not many dangers. Just four. Viruses, Trojans, external intrusion, and unauthorized local access to the computer. Of course, in “real life” these methods may overlap, for example, a Trojan provides a remote invasion or local access is used to introduce viruses, but still these categories can be traced quite clearly.

The main thing to understand is that viruses and Trojans are programs. They don’t appear on their own (out of nowhere), programmers write them and then try by hook or by crook to push them onto your computer and run them. Until you launch them, nothing will happen; another thing is that many modern “very smart” programs can (and do) launch something without your knowledge; this is how all sorts of “mail viruses” are spread, which send out themselves. The saving grace is that such viruses are tied to certain programs (most often, MS Outlook and Exchange), but these programs are the most common in corporate networks...

However, let's return to our lambs. The main difference between viruses and Trojans, in my opinion, is that viruses are “self-sufficient” creatures, and Trojans need a connection with the comrade who launched them. The traditional definition is about the ability to spread, independently infect other files and computers, etc. does not quite accurately reflect the essence. The fact is that when fighting these “little animals”, we need to avoid harmful consequences. In the case of viruses, such consequences are various actions provided by the programmer and the virus performs them independently; in the case of Trojans, the harm lies in the fact that your data is sent to the author or distributor of the Trojan, or it (the Trojan) gives him (the author or distributor) access to your machine. Of course, no one is stopping you from creating hybrid versions of, say, a self-propagating Trojan or a virus that occasionally sends passwords, but the methods of protecting against this matter will still differ.

Unfortunately, fighting viruses is a very complicated matter, and not every programmer can cope with it on their own. Therefore, practically the only way is to use various antivirus programs. But we must clearly understand that not one similar program does not provide 100% reliability - it may “not know” some virus or, on the contrary, suspect it of being a “respectable program”. Because New viruses appear constantly, then anti-virus programs should be updated regularly, for example, the AVP virus database is now updated daily.

Most antiviruses have two modes of use - scanner and monitor. The scanner is engaged in carefully checking the files located on the disk; at the same time, you can specify for verification separate files, directories or the entire hard drive. The monitor, on the other hand, is a resident program (that is, it is running all the time while the computer is on) and “on the fly” checks the programs you launch and the files that these programs access. As a rule, the monitor performs a less thorough check than the scanner, but it still allows you to catch the most common nasty things. Unfortunately, antiviruses have one drawback - they slow down the work quite noticeably, because they need to analyze each file before allowing its use. It is because of these “brakes” that users very often disable antiviruses... But in vain.

Of course, you can turn off the monitor when you are working with familiar programs, but if you are working with the Internet or starting something new, then it is better to be safe... And also, it is worth spending a couple of minutes and setting the scanner to automatically launch, say, on Friday in the evening and checking all disks and files - you still don’t work at night, but, as you know, God protects the best...

In addition to antiviruses, there is another very useful type of program - auditors (perhaps the most famous of them is ADinf32). What they do is track changes to your files stored on disk. When you first launch such a program, it looks through your files and remembers for each of them " checksum", and during subsequent runs, it recalculates these amounts again and compares them with the stored value. And, of course, it issues a warning if a file has changed (and the virus, “infecting” the file, changes it somewhat). Using auditors requires some patience, because first it will take you some time to configure it - indicating those directories and files that do not need to be monitored - and then you will have to look through the lists of changed files and decide whether it is a virus... But these difficulties are well worth it - sharing antivirus and auditor gives very high degree protection against viruses.

2. Where do computer viruses come from?

The malware is created by a person. Virus creators have different goals and different qualifications. It often happens that a virus is created by a person who does not have deep knowledge of the art of programming. As for the goals of virus writers, we can name the following: the desire to illegally obtain information stored on a remote computer and subsequently use it for their own selfish purposes; many try to assert themselves in this way and gain authority among their friends and acquaintances; and, finally, for most virus writers, this is a kind of hobby, an interest, like for you, for example, collecting some objects or watching films made by unknown directors.

There are only two ways a virus can enter your computer. Firstly, a virus can be recorded on some storage medium (for example, on a floppy disk or CD), and as soon as you insert it into the computer and access its contents, the virus is activated and the so-called “infection” of the computer occurs . Secondly, a virus can enter your computer from the Internet (most often through Microsoft programs - Outlook Express, Internet Explorer). Today this is the fastest and most relevant way to spread computer viruses. On the Internet, you can “get infected” with a virus by browsing the most harmless website, and, naturally, by receiving an email.

But, in order not to “get infected” with a computer virus, it is completely unnecessary to resort to extreme measures. You cannot do without floppy disks, CDs and other storage media. Not using the World Wide Web means taking a step back in the development of progress.

3. How to protect yourself from computer viruses?

It is necessary to protect yourself from computer viruses in the same way as you protect yourself, for example, from infectious diseases.

Firstly, you just need to follow the rules of “computer hygiene” and be especially careful about everything you do on the computer. Do not enter into casual relationships, i.e. for example, do not open letters from unknown senders, avoid random contacts, i.e. do not indiscriminately click on various Internet banners and links, and before accessing the content, for example, a floppy disk, check it with an anti-virus program. Here we need regular prevention. Those. If you notice that the “behavior” of your computer has changed, then its entire information content must be scanned for viruses in order to take timely action. This leads to the second recommendation.

Secondly, antivirus software should not be neglected. Unfortunately, it is not immediately possible to find the most optimal antivirus software. This will take some time. If you need to pay money, then it is better to pay it if you value the information stored on your computer and its confidentiality, as well as your own time, especially since today there are worthy solutions for antivirus protection are inexpensive (for example, 10 dollars per month.

Thirdly, it is necessary to follow information and news. Informed means protected. If you hear or read information about a new computer virus, you can prepare in advance.

Fourthly, software designed to protect against computer viruses must be updated periodically. These are the basics that every modern computer and Internet user should know.

Therefore, there are basic rules for preventing viral infection:

1. Be especially careful with by email, whose return address is unknown to you;
2. Never open files attached to an email unless you know what is there;
3. Use " mailboxes» on servers with antivirus software. Then the antivirus itself will scan the mail sent to you and display a message about the possibility of infection if the letter contains dangerous files.
4. Be careful when downloading programs from the Internet. Although most sites check their libraries for viruses, who can be 100% sure?
5. Install on your computer an anti-virus program that has the option constant update virus database via the Internet.

4. Antivirus programs

Antivirus programs fight viruses. Typically, such programs are based on heuristics. Heuristics is an anti-virus technology that consists of searching for signs of virus activity, such as suspicious code or unexpected changes in files. Some antivirus programs:

NOD32 www.eset.com Command AntiVirus www.commandcom.com McAfee VirusScan www.mcafee.com Norton AntiVirus www.symantec.com Panda Antivirus www.pandasoftware.com Sophos Anti-Virus www.sophos.com Trend PC-cillin www.antivirus .com Doctor Web of Dialog Science www.dialognauka.ru AVP of Kaspersky Lab www.kaspersky.ru

5. Types of viruses

Currently "divorced" great amount computer viruses.

Boot virus - infects the floppy disk area or hard drive, which stores operating information and file systems. Every time you start a machine with an infected floppy disk left in the drive, a virus can enter it.

File virus - is embedded in program (exe- and com-) files. After that, it copies itself every time the infected program is executed.

A wild virus is one that actually circulates.

Laboratory virus - lives mainly within the walls of research laboratories, failing to be included in the general circulation.

Macrovirus is the most common type of virus; Macro viruses now account for about 80% of all computer infections. Microsoft Word and Excel macros can automatically perform a specific sequence of actions when you open a document. Such a macro command, infected with a virus, can harm anyone Word document or Excel which you open.

Multifaceted virus - uses several spreading mechanisms; The most common option is a combination of file and boot viruses.

Polymorphic virus - changes itself every time it reproduces. Due to the fact that the signatures of such viruses change (in some cases in an arbitrary manner), the traditional technique of identifying a virus by signature often does not allow them to be identified; Antivirus utilities must use heuristics to search for polymorphic viruses.

Stealth virus - uses special techniques to hide from antivirus programs. For the most part, stealth viruses operate in DOS.

A Trojan is a virus consisting of two parts: client and server. The server part infects your computer and opens some port. And with the help of a client program, the infected computer is remotely controlled through an open port.

6. Viruses

Computer viruses, or “Internet worms” as they are sometimes called, have been terrorizing Internet users for many years. Currently, there are more than 150 thousand such viruses in the databases of antivirus programs. Recently, another creation of ill-intentioned programmers, the “Nimda” virus, was discovered. Antivirus companies announced that this is one of the most dangerous viruses in the history of the World Wide Web. The Nimda virus, which appeared in the United States early Tuesday morning, infected eleven thousand computers in the first three hours. It affects both servers and ordinary home computers with equal success. By Thursday, the networks of many well-known companies were infected, and even the website of Microsoft itself, the software manufacturer against which the virus was written. The new "worm" is distributed in several ways, one of which, the most popular, is by email.

The recipient receives the letter, opens it, and either runs the attached file called README.EXE himself, or the Outlook Express mail program does it for him, if it uses a medium level of security. That is, you open a letter and don’t even suspect that you are launching a virus. This ability is what makes the Internet worm especially dangerous. Like its predecessors, "Nimda" is capable of sending itself to all addresses in the user's electronic address book. It also infects everything found on your hard drive HTML files- web pages. You can catch a virus simply by browsing websites hosted on already infected servers.

The effect of the virus is justified by its name - read "Nimda" from right to left, you get "Admin", short for "Administrator". Its most sinister effect: the virus opens access to your hard drives, and, accordingly, to all the information that is on them.

The most famous viruses in their history are "Chernobyl", "Melissa", "I love you", "Anna Kournikova" and "Code red". "Chernobyl" and "Melissa" caused great damage to users in 1999. They were the first. "Chernobyl" appeared on April 26, the anniversary of the accident at the nuclear power plant. The virus erased all information on the computer, turning it into a pile of scrap metal. "Melissa" sent itself to addresses from the electronic address book and allowed access to any information on the hard drive. Their authors were found and convicted.

The author of the harmless virus "Anna Kournikova" surrendered himself. This virus only multiplied itself by sending messages to other addresses, but did no harm. The author, a young Dutch programmer, faces 240 hours of community service with confiscation of his computer and modem.

Letters with the “I love you” virus began to arrive last year, the infection spread very quickly, but antivirus authors quickly dealt with this “love” threat. The virus affected a large number of various files, and within a few days caused damage to hundreds of thousands of computers. Author unknown.

"Code red" raged across the planet just a month ago, infecting more than 350 thousand computers and even causing a White House server to crash. Anyone who wanted to look at the site on the infected White House server would see a message in English for 10 hours: “Hacked by the Chinese.” Subsequent modification of the virus made it possible to remotely control the computer and reboot it at any time. The authors of this virus have also not yet been found.

Another virus once again affects thousands of computers around the world. Moreover, the list of victims often includes the same companies. Is there really no protection from viruses? After all, a virus is simply a program that exploits errors in the software on the machine. The first and easily eliminated cause of infection is the usual negligence of system administrators of large organizations. The extent to which it reaches can be understood by remembering that the servers of Microsoft itself, the developer of the computer environment in which these viruses spread so quickly, are affected. After all, after every major digital epidemic, Microsoft specialists develop and release special patches - that is, patches that patch holes in the Outlook and Outlook Express email programs and the Internet Explorer browser. So, it turns out that even Microsoft and some of its subsidiaries do not have these patches installed. And they say that Bill Gates has iron discipline...

So, the first obvious remedy: subscribe on the official Microsoft server to the mailing list of constantly appearing patches, namely the mailing list, since in addition to major epidemics, dozens of viruses appear daily for Microsoft products. The second means of prevention is to turn off mail program the option to automatically launch any applications and under no circumstances open files with unknown extensions attached to the letter in letters - even from people you know. Especially those with the “EXE” extension, since these are executable files that run automatically and begin to take over the computer.

Why should you be attentive even to letters from familiar addresses? The fact is that the virus often uses notebook infected computer or reads email addresses from an archive, and malware they come from quite familiar and “decent” addresses. Cautious users ask their correspondents to describe in a letter what file they are sending and why. This is very reasonable, because even the most “advanced” hacker will not be able to write a universal resume application that will not arouse suspicion among most people.

Unfortunately, in the latest epidemic, viruses have made their way onto server pages and you can become infected even by simply browsing the Internet pages of such well-known companies as Dell and Microsoft. What to do? Many experts believe, and I join them, that the safest thing to do is simply not to use the most vulnerable Microsoft products, but to replace them with others, especially since they are distributed free of charge. You don’t even have to think for a long time - for example, the Netscape, Opera browser or the Bat email program. However, you can choose others.

It should be emphasized that a virus is a program that looks for specific flaws in specific program, in 99 percent of cases these are Microsoft products - as the most widespread and extensive. If you open an ordinary infected file in "Netscape" or "Bat", even when it starts, it will not find the holes it is designed for. So you need to exercise basic caution and think about installing a pair free programs and update your antivirus program.

7. Trojan horses

Recently, specific malicious programs that use the Internet connection have also become very widespread. They are called "Trojan horses" or "Trojans". A fairly accurate name, if you remember the history of the Trojan War: after a long siege of Troy, the Greeks left a gift for the courageous Trojans at the gates of the city - a huge wooden horse. The naive Trojans dragged the horse into the walls of the city, and at night the soldiers hiding there got out of the horse... The Trojans quickly realized their mistake, but you, having received a Trojan program on your computer, can remain in the dark about this for a long time. Meanwhile, the malicious program collects information stored on your computer and sends it to the “right place.”

What do Trojans do? For the most part, they steal Internet passwords and other “secret” information (for example, credit card numbers) and send it to the “owner” (and where do you think “hacker” sites get passwords for free connection?) Another common option is to install various servers for remote control. If such a “beast” ends up in your system, then its owner will be able to work on your computer almost as if it were his own (or simply play dirty tricks, for example, by turning off the modem). Also, a “server” Trojan can be, say, an FTP server, and allow an attacker to upload or download any files to you. For example, there are also exotic ones that, unnoticed by the user, install software for distributed hacking of the RC5 algorithm and use his computer in favor of one or another command. The bourgeoisie has Trojans that automatically call 900 phone numbers (these are numbers for which the subscriber pays extra money for calls, say, the notorious “phone sex”). In general, the number of various dirty tricks is determined only by the imagination of the authors...

The most notorious Trojan program is Back Orifice (literally in Russian: “back passage”). Having it on your computer is a real disaster. This is essentially a mini-server that allows you to control your computer remotely over an Internet connection: download any files from it, run programs on it, make your computer stop responding to keyboard input, reboot your computer, etc. and so on. It's unpleasant, isn't it?

Beware of infected floppy disks, unlicensed CDs, programs downloaded from random Internet sites, or sent by mail from unknown persons, no matter under what guise these programs are offered to you. If you receive an unexpected letter with a program attached, there is no need to panic; the virus itself will not penetrate your computer. Simply delete such a letter and the program without launching it. If curiosity is stronger than caution, then be sure to check the program for viruses.

Regularly scan your computer using antivirus programs for viruses and Trojans. Also, be sure to check all new programs that you are going to install or simply launch on your computer, including those received by e-mail. To detect and remove the two most common Trojans, Back Orifice and NetBus, use the BODetect program.

To record attempts to penetrate your computer and block them, use the NukeNabber program (dynamsol.com/puppet/nukenabber.html). After installing and launching the Nuke Nabber program, do the following:
In the File | Options | General, check the following boxes: Run Minimized, Use SysTray, Block Port Scanners. On the same tab, in the Default Port Options section, enable Disable Port For. In the File | Options | Advanced, you can change the list of ports that the program monitors. In particular, you can add monitoring of ports 31337/udp and 31338/udp (the Back Orifice trojan uses them by default), as well as 12345/tcp and 12346/tcp (the NetBus trojan uses them by default). Click the OK button and minimize (minimize) the main program window. NukeNabber will warn about attempts to penetrate your computer, and also block the port through which the connection is made for the time specified in the Disable Port For item. If Nuke Nabber displays the message: Winsock doesn't support ICMP monitoring, then it is recommended to update Winsock on your system.

Another very good program is Zone Alarm Pro. It contains many useful things to ensure Internet security.

How do Trojans get onto your computer? Unfortunately, nothing can be said definitively here - otherwise, one could simply block these paths and not worry... Most often, infection occurs when the user runs some program received from a “dubious source.” The standard way of distributing Trojans is to send letters on behalf of well-known servers, and the letter indicates that the attached file is a new program/patch, etc. Another way is a letter that supposedly ended up in the wrong place by mistake. The main task of such letters is to interest you and force you to launch the attached file. Please note that even an attached image can turn out to be a Trojan: you can, for example, call it “1.gif many spaces.exe” and attach the corresponding icon - and you will only see a piece of the name in your email program: “1.gif”. No less common is the disguise of Trojans as new versions of well-known programs (including antiviruses) and as... Trojans. So, if you decide to have some fun and slip a Trojan to your friend, then it is possible that you yourself will find yourself a victim of an attacker.

As a general rule, always be suspicious of files received from an unfamiliar source. Yes, and from a friend too. Any file you receive by mail, if you have not previously agreed to send it to you, will most likely turn out to be a Trojan. Most of the so-called "hacker" programs designed to hack a network, etc. - will also turn out to be Trojans. The rule works very well here: “just because you are paranoid does not mean that you are not being watched.”

By the way, quite often a Trojan can be identified by its writing style. If you receive a letter or see on a page something like “hey, dude, the coolest nuke is here,” then there is a 90 percent chance that this is a Trojan.

How to detect a Trojan? In order for the Trojan to do its dirty work, it must be running on your computer. The first time you launch it yourself, but you cannot hope that you will do it every time. Accordingly, the Trojan must take care not to die after rebooting the computer. In Windows, there are three places from where a program can automatically launch when the system boots: the Startup folder, win.ini and the registry (of course, there are also various drivers, but such complex Trojans are very rare). So, if you periodically check these places, say, using PC Security Guard or RunServices, for “unidentified” programs, then with a high degree of confidence you will be able to neutralize the Trojans. Another thing is that we still need to figure out that this is a Trojan... The fact is that a huge number of files live in Windows, and it is quite difficult to determine whether this file should “live” here or whether it is an “alien”. Moreover, many Trojans have quite plausible names, for example browser.exe or spoolsrv.exe...

It is more difficult to identify an already running Trojan, although it is also possible. By pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del or using some special program, you can view a list of processes running on your computer. Using the netstat utility (or another similar one) you can see with whom and on what port your computer is communicating. True, to use these utilities (more precisely, in order to understand their results) certain knowledge is required... By the way, an indirect sign of the presence of a Trojan can be the Internet activity of your computer at a time when you are not doing anything (although with the same success, it may turn out to be some harmless utility that checks background your bookmarks or caching pages).

Even if you have identified the Trojan, it is not a fact that you will be able to remove it easily - Windows does not allow you to delete files running programs. Therefore, you need to determine where the Trojan is launched from, delete this entry, restart the computer and after that kill the harmful file. Although, it’s better not to kill him, but first to move him somewhere - maybe it’s still something needed.

8. Nuke (attack)

Nuke is an attack whose goal is to deny the operation of any network service. For this purpose, many programs have been created (WinNuke, Nuke Attack, etc.) that every asshole can download on the Internet and destroy your car. To prevent this from happening, I wrote this article. I won’t write here about how these programs work, but I’ll just say that most of them attack the computer at the specified IP address (usually on port 139, and in Win95 there was such a hole that it was possible to reboot the computer with a nuke) sending one or more incorrect requests to a network application running on the computer. The possibility of these attacks is based on the TCP/IP protocol and is a consequence of various holes and errors in the software.
In order to protect yourself from nukes, you need to constantly go to the websites of programs that you use when working on the Internet (primarily microsoft.com) and install an anti-nukeer on your computer. I won’t write here about how to download and install updates either, but I’ll tell you about one good anti-nuker.
This anti-nuker is called NukeNabber (translated as “Nuke Grab”) and is (in my opinion, and not only in my opinion) the best of its kind. Once launched, it hangs resident in the RAM and monitors 50 ports at once (by default it monitors 13, but you can assign the rest yourself), blocking external access to network services that can be attacked by hackers using nukes and floods. Having detected an attack, it temporarily disables the port (by default for 60 seconds, but it’s better to set it to 120 seconds), which saves you from nukes or voodoo. Another thing that attracts about this program is that it provides a decent amount of information about the attacker (person), right down to his NickName.
I hope that you will figure out the settings yourself (maybe I’ll write an addition to this article about NukeNabber’s settings) and I’ve already heard rumors that NukeNabber has been translated into Russian. Now about where you can download NukeNabber. It is Freeware and is available for downloading from the program’s author’s website at: dynamsol.com/puppet/nukenabber.html or from web-hack.ru. At this stage, I’ll bow out and leave you alone with NukeNabber, who will let you experience life without nukes and floods.

But still, a well-configured FireWall will always give you higher protection. type Zone Alarm Pro.

All software can be divided into useful and malicious. In the second case, we are, of course, talking about computer viruses, the first of which appeared in the 70-80s of the last century. Since then, these pest programs have evolved very much, but even now they have many common features with their ancestors.

As you may have guessed, this article is about the history of computer viruses. So, you will find out who came up with these ill-fated programs and what path they have taken from their inception to the present day.

History of the name

It’s worth starting with why viruses were named that way and not something else. After all, it was possible to come up with a name more related to computer topics. The thing is that these programs are very similar in their method of distribution to biological viruses. Both one and the other constantly reproduce themselves, gradually capturing more and more new areas of the body. Moreover, both computer ones are not limited to one carrier, but constantly infect an increasing number of victims.

Unfortunately, it is not known exactly who is the author of this well-established term. True, many experts claim that the phrase “computer virus” was first used by science fiction writer Gregory Benford. In his work “The Scarred Man,” written in 1970, a virus is a program that harms computers.

Theory

If we talk about the emergence of various new technologies, then, as often happens, theory is born first, and only then does it come to practice. Viruses are no exception to this rule.

Back in 1949, American mathematician John von Neumann taught a course on complex automatic devices. Then, already in 1951, he published a scientific work entitled “The Theory of Self-Replicating Devices,” which described in detail the possibility of creating a computer program with the ability to self-replicate.

Much later, in 1972, Veit Rizak developed the American theory. He described in detail the mechanism of operation of a full-fledged application, which was essentially a virus, for the Siemens 4004/35 system. And finally, in 1980, Jurgen Kraus, as a graduate of the University of Dortmund, for the first time compared such a program with a biological infection.

Of course, everything described above had a huge impact on the history of computer viruses. But, as you may have noticed, all the works of scientists were devoted exclusively to harmless programs capable of self-reproduction.

From theory to practice

Inspired by John's work, Bell Laboratories employees decided to test his theories in practice. They created a game for the 7090. The project was called Darwin.

The essence of this toy was that a certain number of assembler programs (they were called organisms) were placed in the computer's memory. In this case, the organisms were approximately equally divided between the two players. The programs then began the process of copying themselves, consuming both disk space and enemy organisms. Accordingly, the winner was the player whose “wards” completely absorbed all the allotted memory, while destroying the opponent’s organisms.

As you can see, Darwin's operating mechanism is very similar to modern malware. Even though the game did not actually affect any computer functions, it is considered the prototype of all viruses.

Creeper and Reaper

In the wake of Darwin's success, developers began to create everything more apps with similar functionality, but Creeper stands out among them. This is an experimental virus, the appearance of which dates back to 1970. The program infected DEC PDP-10 computers running the Tenex operating system and displayed the message on their screens: I`m the creeper! Catch me if you can (“I’m a Creeper! Catch me if you can!”). Despite this behavior, the application never went beyond test bench, so it is not considered the first computer virus.

What's more interesting is the Reaper program, made by the same group of developers. Oddly enough, it was the only task of which was to find and destroy the Creeper. And I must say that she dealt with it successfully. Much time has passed since then, of course, but it was Creeper and Reaper that marked the beginning of the eternal struggle between viruses and antiviruses. What happened next?

With the advent of the 1980s, the era of development of personal computers, as well as floppy disks as storage media, began. This is the same time when the first computer virus appeared. Thus, in 1981, 15-year-old schoolboy Richard Skrenta developed a program for the Apple II capable of infecting the operating room. DOS system booting from a floppy disk. The virus was called Elk Cloner and, very importantly, it could copy itself onto “healthy” media, thus traveling from one computer to another.

In principle, the program did not do much harm to the PC. The Apple II virus only displayed a message on the computer screen. It was written in poetic form. However, Elk Cloner was an unpleasant surprise for users. After all, they had never encountered anything like this before. In addition, the program managed to infect quite a few computers, which, by the standards of that time, was considered the first virus epidemic.

Brain

Following an important event happened in 1986. Programmers Amjad and Basit Alvi created the first computer virus to IBM systems, which was named Brain. According to the developers themselves, they wanted to use their brainchild to punish local pirates, but the situation got out of their control. To believe them or not is a personal matter for everyone.

The Brain computer virus escaped far beyond the borders of Pakistan, where its creators lived, and managed to harm tens of thousands of users. In the USA alone, 20 thousand computers were affected by it. Of course, now this does not sound too threatening, but then it was equivalent to a global epidemic.

The end of the floppy era

Time passed, technology developed, and the era of floppy disks gradually began to decline. At the same time, the Internet gained widespread popularity, thanks to which users began to exchange information with each other. Undoubtedly, all these are very positive moments, but precisely because of them computer viruses have become much more dangerous.

Today they have developed so much that they can spread with terrifying speed. In just a few hours, a particular virus can infect millions of computers, disrupting even government agencies and large companies. What can we say about ordinary users. Moreover, several various types viruses, each of which has its own characteristics. They will be discussed below.

"Worms"

These malicious programs are distinguished by their ability to spread independently. To do this, they exploit application vulnerabilities, attacking them via both local and global networks (the Internet). Theoretically, a worm can infect all existing computers in the world in 15 minutes, but, fortunately, in reality this is impossible.

The first and one of the most famous representatives of this type of virus is the so-called Morris worm. It was created in 1988 and in the shortest possible time managed to infect about 6,200 computers, which then corresponded to approximately 10% of all PCs connected to the Internet.

Trojans

As for Trojans, they, unlike worms, cannot spread independently. These viruses enter the computer as a result of certain actions of the users themselves. For example, you can install a program that is legal and harmless at first glance, but malware will be hidden under its guise.

Having infected a computer, the Trojan begins to perform all sorts of unauthorized actions. So, he can collect information, including passwords, or simply use system resources for some nefarious purposes.

The first representative of this type of virus is considered to be AIDS, which raged in 1989. Then it was distributed on floppy disks, replaced the AUTOEXEC.BAT file and began to count the number of system bootups. As soon as this number reached 90, the Trojan encrypted the names of all files on the C drive, making it impossible to use the OS. The person, accordingly, was asked to pay in order to regain access to his information.

Polymorphs

They stand out because they have an increased level of protection from detection by antivirus utilities. Simply put, these viruses, thanks to the special programming technique used to create them, can remain undetected for a long time, causing harm to the system. The first of the known polymorphs is relatively “young”. It appeared in 1990 and was called Chameleon, and its creator is Mark Washburn.

Stealth viruses

Stealth viruses, at first glance, are very similar to polymorphs. They hide their presence on the computer in the same way, but they use slightly different methods to do this. Stealth viruses intercept calls from antivirus programs to operating system, thereby excluding the possibility of detection. The first representative of this family is considered to be the Frodo program, developed in Israel at the end of 1989, but its debut use took place already in 1990.

A little about protection

While viruses were developing, antiviruses, which are the best way to combat them, also did not stand still. So, in addition to the already mentioned Reaper, utilities made to protect against unwanted software periodically appeared. True, until 1981, viruses did not pose a serious threat, so there was no need to somehow resist them.

If we talk about antiviruses in the modern sense of the term, the first of them began to be used in 1985. The program was called DRProtect and prevented all third-party actions related to the BIOS, restarting the computer if they were detected.

However, malware developers gradually learned to bypass the protection provided by the primitive antiviruses of the time. The situation was saved only in 1992 thanks to the program of Evgeniy Kaspersky. It had a built-in system code emulator, which, with some modifications, is used in antiviruses to this day.

Who needs it?

It is logical that virus developers, when creating them, pursue some specific goals. But their intentions can be very different, ranging from damage to competitors’ equipment to the desire to steal other people’s cash. Often, during attacks on large companies, the victims of viral epidemics are the most regular users, because they are less able to protect themselves from them.

Be that as it may, you must be prepared for such situations. Always update your antivirus to the latest version, and you will reduce the likelihood of infecting your computer to a minimum.

Biologists are still arguing about what viruses are, whether they are living creatures or dead matter. Encyclopedic dictionaries frankly admit: at present, science does not understand the nature of these creatures, does not know how and where they came from.

Scientists so far agree that viruses are a special form of matter. What allows us to consider them alive is that they contain organic molecules, that they have their own genome, and that they can reproduce. However, they are able to live and reproduce only inside someone else’s body, someone else’s cell. Outside of it, they are just dead inert crystals, heaps of molecules.

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)

To date, about two thousand types of viruses have been discovered. Supposed. that this is only a very small part of them. Viruses constantly mutate, and new varieties arise from somewhere. sometimes causing deadly diseases such as mad cow disease, bird flu, Ebola, AIDS and others.

These ruthless cell killers seem so alien to everything terrestrial that many researchers who study them quite seriously claim that viruses came to Earth from deep space. Their actions really look like episodes from horror films about an attack by representatives of an extraterrestrial civilization. A monstrous-looking dwarf bites into a gigantic, nothing-

goes to an unsuspecting cell, dissolves its shell and screws a “spring” of its DNA into it. This "spring" gives the cell its own program, thereby changing her entire work. The unfortunate affected cell forgets about its original responsibilities and begins to churn out more and more new viruses from the resulting matrix, bringing death to neighboring cells.

Representatives of one of the varieties of viruses - bacteriophages (bacteria eaters) - even look like a space module created for landing on an alien planet for the purpose of taking soil samples. The bacteriophage releases peculiar “support posts” with which it is firmly attached to the victim, and then plunges its drill into it.
Viruses don't need food. They do not consume or assimilate it. As scientists admit, in their structure, viruses are more similar to primitive mechanisms that pursue one single goal: to search for living cells and integrate into them. But by whom, when and why was such a task assigned to them? Experts do not even dare to think about this issue.

Viruses originated in space

In 2008, Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences S. Zhmur proposed his own hypothesis of the origin of life on Earth. In his opinion, the main ancestor of all living things was not cells, or even bacteria, but viruses, which originated in the circumsolar space about five billion years ago.

After the explosion of a certain supernova, huge masses of stellar matter were thrown into space, from which a gas and dust cloud was subsequently formed, and from it then the planets of the Solar System. Heat this substance contributed to the formation of cyanides in it - chemical elements, which represent the basis for the creation of the simplest hydrocarbons. The next stage consisted of the appearance of hydrocarbon-based enzyme proteins and peptide proteins, which then led to the synthesis of nucleic acid molecules. And this, in turn, allowed the formation of RNA and DNA, which “created” for their protection from harmful external influences peptide shell. This is how a structure arose that is nothing more than the virus we are familiar with.

Influenza A/H1N1 virus

It turns out that five billion years ago the gas and dust cloud of the future solar system was not just dead matter, but a substance saturated with the simplest viruses (remember the traces of microorganisms in the lunar soil and meteorites four and a half billion years old!). Subsequently, the Earth and other planets were formed from it, in which the germs of life in the form of viruses were already initially contained.

The further evolution of viruses on Earth took place thanks to water, which penetrated into them through the peptide shell. Some types of viruses swelled, their protoplasm formed, and their genetic apparatus became more complex. All this led to the division and. ultimately, the emergence of a full-fledged bacterial cell, which marked the beginning of life on the planet.

S. Zhmur does not exclude the possibility of a more ancient origin of viruses. They were able to arise in the matter formed immediately after the Big Bang. This means that the age of these microscopic creatures is almost equal to the age of the Universe. That is, it turns out that a single living substance is spread everywhere in space, capable of giving rise to life on any celestial body suitable for it.

Some researchers go even further, believing that viruses are artificially created biorobots that came to Earth billions of years ago along with organic embryos. The purpose of the biorobot viruses was to serve these embryos. Russian scientist M. Daryanenko believes that biorobot viruses were called upon to

ensure the necessary course of evolution by connecting in a certain sequence with the cells of living organisms and introducing into them necessary programs DNA. But over millions of years of their activity, something went wrong, and viruses turned from servants of cells into their killers. It is possible that the biorobot viruses decided: life on Earth did not follow the scenario prescribed for it by the program. And the experiment must be curtailed, clearing the planet for new experiments.

Mimi virus - the missing link in evolution?

From the point of view of most scientists, the question of the origin of viruses is still not paramount. The main thing is to understand what viruses are, how to coexist with them, how to fight them. We learned about viruses relatively recently - only 100 years ago, but we learned to actually work with them only in the middle of the last century.

Not so long ago, biologists believed that they had finally found patterns in the structure of viruses and the mechanism of their action. But the epiphany came in 1992, when an amazing, unlike anything else object was discovered in an amoeba caught in the water of an industrial reservoir in England. It is 40 times larger in diameter than known viruses, but is not a bacterium. Biologists recognized it as a virus, calling it mimi because of its mimicry, or disguise as a bacterium.

Precellular life form

Man is approximately two million years old. The age of viruses, by all estimates, is estimated at billions of years. Moreover, they can exist in a “preserved” state indefinitely. In fact, viruses are immortal. Deciphering our genome has shown that it is full of remnants of ancient viruses. They occupy almost 10% of the human genome. Why these remnants are there is still unknown. Similar questions science began to be discussed only in very recent years.

“Human civilization has seen viral diseases throughout history that have claimed millions of lives,” says Robert Shope, director of the Yale Virus Laboratory. - Sometimes it seemed that humanity was on the verge of complete destruction. But every time everything worked out more or less well. The viruses were receding. Is this a coincidence? Or was it programmed this way from the very beginning, from the moment life appeared on Earth?”

Mysteries of the 20th century No. 34 2011