Frequently Asked Questions
Below are a list of frequently asked questions about a WARP and about general IT Security.
1. What Does WARP stand for?
WARP stands for Warning, Advice and Reporting Point.
2. What is a WARP?
A WARP is a small team of helpful technically minded people who work to provide solutions against the possibilities of electronic attacks and vulnerabilities over the Internet. It is very much a two-way operation.
3. What does a WARP do?
The main functions of a WARP are as follows:
- Warnings - The Filtered Warning and Advisory Service (FWAS) recieves intelligence from other WARPs/CERTs and other sources, filters and assess it, and reissues it to members where appropriate, perhaps with increased priority.
- Advice - The Good Practice & Advisory Service (GPABS) promotes e-mail and/or telephone advice to community members on Internet related security matters. A secure on-line bulletin board is also used to facilitate this.
- Reporting - The Reporting & Trusted Sharing Service (RTSS) allows the recording of IT-Security incident reports from members. The whole community can then learn from the sanitised and anonymised incident reports.
4. Who runs the WMCWARP?
The WMCWARP is run by West Midlands Council and is based at the University of Wolverhampton.
5. What is a Virus?
A program or code that replicates; that is, infects another program, boot sector, partition sector, or document that supports macros, by inserting itself or attaching itself to that medium. Most viruses only replicate, though, many do a large amount of damage aswell.
6. What is a Worm?
A program that makes copies of itself; for example, from one disk drive to another, or by copying itself using email or another transport mechanism. The worm may do damage and compromise the security of the computer. It may arrive in the for of a joke program or software of some sort.
7. What is a Trojan Horse?
A program that neither replicates nor copies itself, but causes damage or compromises the security of a computer.
8. What is Adware?
Programs that secretly gather personal information through the Internet and relay it back to another computer, generally for advertising purposes. This is often accomplished by tracking information related to Internet browser usage or habits.
9. What is Spyware?
Stand-alone programs that can secretly monitor system activity. These may detect passwords or other confidential information and transmit them to another computer.
10. How does Remote Access work?
Programs that allow another computer to gain information or to attack or alter your computer, usually over the Internet. Remote access programs detected in virus scans may be recognizable commercial software, which are brought to the user's attention during the scan.
