Malware City IT Dictionary

Malware city / IT Dictionary

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Latency	'Latent' means concealed or dormant; existing but not manifest. It has two particular connotations within IT. In communications, latency is the time occurring between initiating a request for data and the beginning of the actual data transfer. On a disk, for example, latency is the time it takes for the selected sector to be positioned under the read/write head. On the Internet, it is the time between entering the URL in the client, and the server beginning its response. In computer security, latency has relevance to malware - it is the period between infection and the first obvious damage to the system. Many viruses written by amateurs have a short latency and are detected before they spread very far. However, more damaging viruses can lie dormant, or replicate to many other hosts, before the payload is activated.
Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP)	L2TP is an Internet client-server protocol that combines aspects of PPTP and L2F and supports tunneling of PPP over an IP network or other switched network. It is used to provide an encrypted link (tunnel) over a public network, providing the security for a VPN. L2TP itself does not specify security services; it depends on protocols layered above and below it to provide any needed security. L2TP is described in RFC 2661: Layer Two Tunneling Protocol “L2TP”.
Layered Security	The principle of using multiple overlapping security applications to provide greater security in depth (for example, combiing the use of a firewall, an IDS, anti-virus software and content security).
Letterbomb	A piece of email containing live data intended to do malicious things to the recipient's machine or terminal. Under UNIX , a letterbomb can also try to get part of its content interpreted as a shell command to the mailer. The results of this could range from amusing to denial of service.
Lib_TPU.Family.Variant	Turbo Pascal Library Virus (virus infecting TurboPascal libraries)
Linux.Family.Variant	Linux.Family.Variant Linux Virus (viruses which infect Linux ELF executables)
Logic bomb	A resident computer program that triggers the perpetration of an unauthorized act when particular states of the system are realized. For example, a logic bomb could remain hidden and dormant until December 25th, and then delete all or specified files.