A colleague of mine, Karthik Krishnamoorthy, forwarded me a link comparing H1N1 to a computer virus. The post is the most fascinating description of the inner workings of a virus I have ever read and does an excellent job of translating the biology of a real virus into computer terms more understandable by us in the information security industry.
For Example: "If you thought of organisms as computers with IP addresses, each functional group of cells in the organism would be listening to the environment through its own active port. So, as port 25 maps specifically to SMTP services on a computer, port H1 maps specifically to the windpipe region on a human. Interestingly, the same port H1 maps to the intestinal tract on a bird."
The article shows how real viruses have the equivalent of polymorphism and NOP sleds, and most worryingly how efficient they are.
"So it takes about 25 kilobits — 3.2 kbytes — of data to code for a
virus that has a non-trivial chance of killing a human. This is more
efficient than a computer virus, such as MyDoom, which rings in at
around 22 kbytes. It’s humbling that I could be killed by 3.2kbytes of genetic data. Then
again, with 850 Mbytes of data in my genome, there’s bound to be an
exploit or two."
The article goes on to talk about how the virus mutates and adapts to the environment despite its relatively small amount of 'disk space'.
The article can be found here.
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