What Is A Computer Virus?
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) before understanding what a computer virus is. Only able to reproduce itself within another living cell or body, a virus is a small organism. Poor health occurs as a result of a viral infection and body cells are destroyed or damaged as a result.
The word virus comes from Latin and literally means ‘poison’ 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 the flu. How does this relate to computers? Usually the computer virus is hidden within a program, file or document which means it can be anywhere on your pc.
Criminals, and other talented idiots with nothing better to do with their time, create these viruses and spread them to other people’s computers. The sole purpose of this activity is to create trouble and damage for every pc user. Files and documents can be severely damaged when a computer virus enters the computer, similar to the effects of influenza upon the human body. Files and documents; such as word-processing documents, spreadsheets, emails, computer programs etc can have a computer virus spread through them. 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. As it is concealed and difficult to identify, it can be inadvertently passed on to other computer users.
A computer virus works similarly to viruses (like the flu) that make a person sick. What each type of ‘digital virus’ will do to your computer depends on what it has been programmed to do, it can be very harmful, while others are created to simply annoy and will literally make your computer ’sick’. Macro Viruses, Email Viruses and Trojan Horses are examples of terms used to describe different types of computer viruses. You will be able to control the security of your computer when you understand the fundamentals about computer viruses.
