Viruses are by far the biggest threat to any computer. It is a program written by a computer programmer, not necessarily though. There are many kinds of viruses that display different damage patterns in a computer. This depends on what is written in their program. A very troublesome feature of a virus is that it spreads from one computer to another. Since there are so many kinds of viruses, we will focus on the three main categories to make things easier for us to understand.

The first question that arises in mind before understanding more about viruses is who writes these viruses. There are individuals from so many different backgrounds involved in writing such malicious program. It has been really difficult to determine the thought behind writing such a monster that can cause damage at such a massive scale. But the most common reason is to test skills by writing such programs, mostly experimentation. There are others who just want to sabotage and make gains out of all this.

Different Types of Computer Viruses

We will now revert back to learn more about the three categories of viruses; Trojans, Worms and Email viruses. The Trojan virus enters your computer when you allow it to enter. Now the question is why you would allow a virus to enter your system. For example, you downloaded a file such as genius.jpg because you like to collect images and that image has a Trojan virus in it. Now once you open the image, the virus will automatically make its way into your computer. Trojan does not replicate but makes an environment to allow other viruses to infect the computer.

Worm is a more dangerous kind than Trojan. This virus has the capacity to replicate and spread to various files and if the computer is on the network, then the worm can spread from one computer to another and so on. It would not be wrong to say that worm is an intelligent virus because it analyzes the loop holes and creates serious security threats that just keep on crashing computer after computer. It also has the capability of spreading on the network through emails.

Let me quote here about a worm called ILoveYou. This virus was reported on May 4, 2000 and it caused a total shutdown of companies, government institutions, personal users, as they had to shut down their mail servers, complete banking systems, etc. It was nothing less than a nightmare. This worm was reported to be made by a Philippines couple who were ultimately caught on May 8, 2000. Through this example, we can clearly understand the damage that this virus (worm) can bring.

The third category that I am going to list here is the Email virus. This virus is embedded in email attachments and when you open an attachment that you receive from an unknown source, it is highly likely that you are opening up an email virus. This virus has the capability to send mails to all your contacts, including your family, business contacts, etc. This can be a total disaster and a total burn down of your business credibility once your client knows that you are working in an unsecured environment.

The viruses can spread very quickly from one program file to another and make changes in the program files that will render the program inoperable. The computer can be infected by a boot sector virus if you are using a floppy infected with that virus. The virus can break the backbone of your computer, Windows Registry. The question arises here as to how we can get rid of computer viruses. But let us first look at the different signs and symptoms of a computer infected with a virus, then we will move on to how we can prevent and get rid of computer viruses.

The computer infected with a virus runs too slow and often ends up with a frozen computer. It will crash and restart and then crash to restart again. The programs don’t run as they were before. You are unable to give a print command. The antivirus program is disabled and gets disabled every time you enable it. You might hear different sounds or music from your computer at times when you are not listening to any song or opening up any programs.

The worms on the other hand just replicate so many times that in the end you are out of disk space. It will spread out with an infected file by sending emails to all your contacts from the address book. It can start deleting files and programs from your computer that you installed before. It will install hidden programs into the computer that will do stealth monitoring of your computer.

How You Can Prevent Computer Viruses

First of all, turn on your firewall. Keep your operating system up to date with the latest operating system files. Do not open any email attachments that are not from the trusted sources. Do not install software, especially free ones from websites you don’t know about. Do not hook your computer on a network that you know is infected. Do not keep an outdated antivirus software because it will not give you the protection you need.

All these preventions are the remedies and solutions to your problem. Get a good antivirus software that provides you with constant updates and that also has a built-in anti-spyware, anti-malware, and anti-adware. I believe learning the above information through this article will enable you to take better care of your computer from now on. Have fun! Best of Luck!