Overview of Computer Viruses
Computer security is a vitally important issue in today's society, a lot
of the most critical aspects of our lives require computers, and keeping
those computers secure is critical. The popularity of the Internet and the
amount of time we spend making use of it has made it very simple to spread
computer viruses.
Computer viruses have become such a problem that they are now frequently
mentioned in both the newspapers television news bulletins as well as in
the online media. It is absolutely critical that you take steps to protect
yourself against viruses, and you must be really vigilant if you spend a
lot of time online.
Virus can be transmitted through e-mail, or a file you download even if
you do not install it, but they can also be present in the files on a
floppy disk, especially if it is being passed from friend to friend.
Lots of computers get infected every day, and if you do not take
precautions yours may be next, and you may lose all of your data on your
computer. Once gone, it will be irretrievable unless of course you had the
good sense to take a regular back up!
A computer virus is a small program that has the ability to duplicate
itself, just like a real virus hence the name. Just like a biological
virus, a computer virus must have a host to exist. The virus payload, the
end product of the computer virus, can be something harmless as simply
displaying a message. The virus can also be something very serious, and it
could fully wipe out your hard drive. Recent computer virus attacks have
resulted in major disruption to both home computers and the networks of
governments and multi national companies.
The advance of the Internet has been the most essential cause of the rapid
increase of computer viruses. Originally viruses were spread when people
swapped disks with their friends, and by its very nature this tended to
restrict the spread of the computer virus but today most people do not
tend to use external media like disks to store data in the same way.
This has resulted in most viruses being spread via the use of e-mail and
file sharing on the Internet. All that is required is for you to open an
e-mail attachment, or download a dangerous program, and this can give your
computer a virus. There are by now, about fifty thousand viruses in
existence, but there are several hundred new threats produced each month.
There are a number of motives that encourage people to write computer
viruses. The earliest virus programs were by and large written as pranks
or experiments. However as some programmers began to learn their way about
systems and the Internet, they wrote viruses just to see what they can do
with them. For example, a programmer might write a computer virus code
just to see how far it would spread. Unfortunately it did not stop there, and
other more malicious individuals who have far more hostile intentions
took great delight writing computer viruses to harm websites or damage
people's computers. An additional reason for a computer virus gets produced
is to blackmail large corporations with the threat of setting off a loss
of data on their systems. There have also been lots of viruses written for
revenge. Employees who are about to lose their jobs can sometimes leave
viruses behind on the company system to do damage to their former
employer's ability to do business.
Also lots of viruses are written for profit. The computer viruses may be
used to send e-mail spam disguising the original sender, causing your
computer to serve as a host to illegal data, or engage in other illegal
activities. Also, viruses can be used to spy on users, display pop-ups
while the user is not on the internet, and acquire user data like
bank accounts or credit card numbers.
Viruses tend to fall into two major types, Worms and Trojan horses, but
just to complicate things, Trojan horses can also be a type of worm.
A Computer Worm is a self replicating program. The first worm to gain wide
attention was the Morris Worm. This infected a large number of computers
and earned its writer 400 hours of community service and over $10000 in fines!
Trojan horses as the name implies are hidden viruses. This helps the
program to get installed in the first place. They then quietly run in the
background, while disseminating its malicious code. This code can do any
amount of things. It can begin right away or it may simply install a
program that won't start for some time. Once it does start, it can delete
all of the files on the computer, or it can infect the computer and try to
infect other computers on the network.
There are a number of ways viruses are delivered, and the Trojan horse is
the most common. It generally comes with other pieces of software that a
user might find interesting or useful. This software is usually shared
through a file-sharing network or downloadable off of the Internet.
Once the user installs the software, the virus also gets installed.
It is vital that you protect yourself against viruses. This can done very
simply by installing a good anti-virus program and keeping it up to date.
There are both free and expensive software applications around that can be
set to self-update to protect from viruses.
You can also help defend yourself by being cautious as to where you download
files from; remember only to use a reputable well-known source.
You should also never open any e-mail attachments unless you know the sender.
Making these safety precautions will help to protect your computer.