04/27/08 05:12 AM

Real Life Trojan Viruses

Posted in cool by Nick Staples

I thought this was interesting:

The pathogen disguises itself as waste material and tricks cells into digesting it, just as they normally would with the remains of dead cells. As the immune response is simultaneously suppressed, the virus can be ingested as waste without being noticed.
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As soon as they impinge upon the cell membrane, an evagination forms, a bleb. The virus itself is the trigger for the formation of the evagination. Using a messenger substance to “knock on the door”, the virus triggers a signaling chain reaction inside the cell so that the bleb forms, catches the virus and smuggles it into the cell.

Apparently, the vaccinia virus is able to disguise itself as cellular waste which other cells readily ingest, causing them to become infected without setting off any alarms. The parallels with computer malware/trojans is apparent— they work in much the same way. If a computer user can be tricked into executing what appears to be an innocent or trusted program/application, they could inadvertently let in all sorts of nasties.

As Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr once said, “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose…”

“The more things change, the more they stay the same…”