What is 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. Microorganisms such as viruses, are only able to divide within another living cell. It is typically harmful to the cell or body in which it lives, and is the cause of many illnesses and diseases.
Virus can be translated from Latin as ‘toxin’, it is like a toxic substance, able to reproduce in the human cells and cause illnesses such as influenza and the chickenpox. Well basically, a computer virus is a harmful computer program which will damage files or your computer, and which is able to duplicate and spread itself within a computer or computer network. Usually the computer virus is hidden within a program, file or document which means it can be anywhere on your pc.
These viruses are generated and spread to other people’s computers by criminals, and other gifted idiots with nothing better to do with their time. The sole reason for doing this is to cause havoc. 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 can have a computer virus spread through them such as word-processing documents, spreadsheets, emails, computer programs etc. It can spread itself through the Internet and through local computer networks, as well as through removable storage devices such as memory sticks and floppy disks. It is hard to detect because it is hidden and it can be unwittingly spread to other computers by the computer user.
A computer virus is comparable to a human virus in that it causes illness to its host. Some are very destructive while others cause minor irritations, making your computer seem ‘under the weather’. Macro Viruses, Email Viruses and Trojan Horses are examples of terms used to describe different types of computer viruses. The first step to learning what to do about viruses is understanding the basics of what they are and how to be entirely control the safety of your computer.
