December 21st, 2008What is A Computer Virus?
Before we can comprehend how a computer virus works, it is important to realise what a virus does when it attacks the human body. Only able to reproduce itself within another living cell or body, a virus is a small organism. Many illnesses and diseases are caused by it and it is characteristically damaging to the cell or body that it inhabits.
Viruses are toxins and are therefore toxic to the human cells, they divide within the body causing illnesses such as chickenpox and German measles. Human viruses and computer viruses are very similar. Usually the computer virus is hidden within a program, file or document which means it can be anywhere on your pc.
These viruses are produced by felons, and other knowledgeable cretins with nothing better to do with their time except spread viruses to other people’s computers. The sole reason for doing this is to cause havoc. Just as influenza can spread from one person to another, contamination of other computers, files and documents can occur as a consequence of a virus entering a computer. A computer virus can spread itself through files and documents; such as word-processing documents, spreadsheets, emails, computer programs etc. As well as through the Internet and through local computer networks, it can multiply through removable storage devices such as memory sticks and floppy disks. It can be unknowingly spread to other computers by the computer user since it is hidden and therefore hard to detect.
What does a computer virus do precisely? Some are very destructive while others cause minor irritations, making your computer seem ‘under the weather’. Some words used to identify various viruses are Macro Viruses, Email Viruses and Trojan Horses. You will be able to control the security of your computer when you understand the fundamentals about computer viruses.
