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Minimal Glossary

[There is room for improvement and expansion here. Contributions will be gratefully accepted.]

• AV - AntiVirus. Sometimes applied as a shorthand term for anti-virus researchers/programmers/publishers - may include those whose work is not AV research, but includes virus-control. (See also Vx.)

• BSI - Boot Sector Infector (= BSV - Boot Sector Virus)

• BIOS - Basic Input Output System

• CMOS - Memory used to store hardware configuration information

• DBR - DOS Boot Record

• DBS - DOS Boot Sector

• False Positive - When an antivirus program incorrectly reports a virus in memory or infecting a file or system area. Heuristic scanners & integrity checkers are, by definition, somewhat more prone to these. Also known as false alarms, though this may have a wider application.

• False Negative - Essentially, a virus undetected by an antivirus program.

• In-the-wild - describes viruses known to be spreading uncontrolled to real-life systems, as opposed to those which exist only in controlled situations such as anti-virus research labs. Virus code which has been published but not actually found spreading out of control is not usually regarded as being in-the-wild.

• MBR - Master Boot Record (Partition Sector)

• TSR - A memory-resident DOS program, i.e one which remains in memory while other programs are running. A good TSR should at least detect all known in-the-wild viruses and a good percentage of other known viruses. Generally, TSRs are not so good with polymorphic viruses, and should not be relied on exclusively. Most TSR scanners don't detect macro viruses.

• vx - Those who study, exchange and write viruses, not necessarily with malicious intentions So we're frequently told here...

• VxD - A Windows program which can run in the background. A scanner implemented as a VxD has nearly all the advantages of a DOS TSR, but can have additional advantages: for instance, a good VxD will scan continuously and for all the viruses detected by an on-demand scanner.

• Zoo - suite of viruses used for testing.