Computer Virus

In reality, computer viruses aren’t so dramatic. In fact, most viruses are designed to hide, do their work quietly, and avoid detection for as long as possible. But a virus’s damage can be dramatic in the extreme, causing untold losses to data and productivity.

What is a Computer Virus?

Virus is a parasitic program that infects other legal programs, which is sometimes called the host. To infect the host program, the virus modifies the host to store a copy of the virus i.e. virus can replicate itself. Many viruses are programmed to do harm once they infect the victim’s system. A virus can be designed to do various kinds of damage. But the ability to do damage is not what defines a virus.

What can a Virus do?

- Copy themselves to other programs or areas of a disk.

- Replicate as rapidly and frequently as possible, filling up the infected system’s disks and memory, rendering the system useless.

- Display information on the screen.

- Modify, corrupt, or destroy selected files.

- Erase the contents of entire disks.

- Lie dormant for a specified time or until a given condition is met, and then become active.

- Open a “back door” to the infected system that allows someone else to access and even take control of the system through a network or Internet connection.

Preventing Infection

It is not much difficult to prevent against virus if you have a little knowledge and some utility software. Some popular antivirus programs include:

- McAfee VirusScan

- Norton AntiVirus

- Virex

- PC-cillin

- Avast!

Only installing antivirus in your system is not enough. Most antivirus programs allow different settings, try to find important settings and enable them. Importantly, do not forget to update the antivirus database regularly through internet service.