What is A computer virus?
Posted by admin on July 30th, 2008
Before understanding what a computer virus is, it is necessary to understand what a virus is when it occurs in a living form (such as a human body, an animal, or a plant). A virus is a small organism that is only able to reproduce itself within another living cell or body. Poor health occurs as a result of a viral infection and body cells are destroyed or damaged as a result.
The word virus literally means ‘poison’ in Latin and that is basically what it is - a ‘poison’, able to reproduce itself within another cell or body and an example of an illness caused by a virus is hepatitis. There are many similarities between human viruses and computer viruses. The computer virus can be anywhere on your pc, usually hidden within a program, file or document.
The production and spread of these viruses is the responsibility of criminals and other knowledgeable idiots who have nothing worthwhile to do. Causing havoc is the main reason for doing this. The computer virus has the ability to spread and ‘contaminate’ other computers, files or documents, similar to a common virus like the flu (which spreads from person to person). Files and documents; such as word-processing documents, spreadsheets, emails, computer programs etc can have a computer virus spread through them. It can spread itself through removable storage devices such as memory sticks and floppy disks, it can spread itself through the Internet and through local computer networks. As it is concealed and difficult to identify, it can be inadvertently passed on to other computer users.
Well, it works similarly to viruses (like the flu) that make a person sick. In fact, a ‘digital virus’ will make your computer ill, some can be very harmful, while others are created to simply annoy and just what each type will do to your computer depends on what it has been programmed to do. Macro Viruses, Email Viruses and Trojan Horses are examples of terms used to describe different types of computer viruses. Taking appropriate safety precautions with regard to your computer will be easier once you have an understanding of what computer viruses are and how they work.
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