What Is Computer Virus?
First of all, it is important to know what a virus does when it attacks the human body before we can fully comprehend how a computer virus works. A virus is a small organism that is only able to reproduce itself within another living cell or body. It is the cause of many illnesses and diseases and is destructive to the cell or body in which it lives.
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. In relation to computers, a computer virus is a harmful computer program which is able to duplicate and spread itself within a computer or computer network and will damage files or the computer itself. The computer virus can be concealed in a program, file or document and could be anywhere on your laptop.
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. Other computers, files or documents can be ‘infected’ by the computer virus, similar to a common virus like the flu (which spreads from one person to another). 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 removable storage devices such as memory sticks and floppy disks, it can spread itself through the Internet and through local computer networks. It is hard to detect because it is hidden and it can be unwittingly spread to other computers by the computer user.
What does a computer virus do precisely? 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. You will be able to control the security of your computer when you understand the fundamentals about computer viruses.