Do you want to know everything about computer viruses? A virus that can ruin your day after attacking your computer system. You will never know how fast your computer system has an infected virus unless one day your computer starts to act weird.
Suppose you brought a new Pc and your computer is everything for you. And you don’t want your computer to get infected by a dreadful virus which can steal your precious information so, in that case, the following article will be helpful, which gives you perfect knowledge about a computer virus. Also, learn how do viruses spread on your computer where you can stay alert if you find any Anonymous activity on your computer. Besides, At the end of this post, we have also listed some tips to protect your PC from computer viruses.
As we all know, it’s important to act quickly to address the problem before it gets even worse than you imagine. So, can’t wait to learn everything about computer viruses? Then go through the whole article.
What is a Computer Virus?
Computer viruses are computer programs that can replicate itself to other computers and applications and can corrupt or even delete the data and files on your computer.
The virus can spread in any form by opening an email attachment, visiting the infected website, or viewing the advertisement on the website. A virus can also be transferable through removable devices like USB drives and floppy disks. Some viruses start repeating when they taint the host, while others will lie lethargic until a particular trigger makes the malignant code be executed by the system.
What Do Computer Viruses Do?
Imagine a virus that has infected the application on your computer. How does this virus do dirty work? The general trend would be like this: whenever the infected application is executed by the user, the virus code is executed on the CPU memory. It will multiply itself by inserting its malicious code wherever it can on the host computer.
Once the virus has its hit on your computer, it can perform nasty things. They can include: scanning the hard drive for banking credentials, log keystrokes to steal passwords, copy, delete, or encrypt data.
How Do Computer Viruses Spread?
In the early pre-internet era, viruses often transferred from one computer to another through floppy disks. The SCA virus that was mostly harmless, spread among Amiga users on disks with pirated software.
Today, viruses spread via the internet. In most cases, the application that has been infected by the virus transferred from one computer to another just like other applications. This is because many viruses include logic bomb- code that executes at a specific time or condition that the user or admin are unaware that their applications are infected.
The infected application can be emailed or downloaded from the infected code repository. One common thing you’ll notice is that they require the victim to execute an infected code or application. Keep in mind, a virus can possibly execute and imitate if its host application is running. There is a common assumption that I can get a virus from opening the email, but this might always not be the case; you have to download and execute an attachment that has an infected virus code. That’s why most mail clients and webmail services include virus scanning features by default.
Types of Computer Virus
A virus is the most troublesome thing when it inserts virus code into your program and application. There are different types of computer virus which works differently in your system. Get some information about these viruses so that you can take some action if you find an unusual behavior on your computer.
File Infectors
Some file infectors viruses attach themselves to program files, usually .com or .exe files, while some can infect any program for which execution is requested. So, the virus will load whenever you load the program.
Macro Viruses
These viruses target the macro language commands in applications like Microsoft and other programs. They can add malignant code to the full-scale arrangements in the word record that is the explanation Microsoft incapacitated macros of course in the late form of the word, thus, aggressors utilize social designing plans to persuade the focused on clients to empower macros and lunch virus.
Overwrite Viruses
These viruses begin overwriting files with their own code. These can install new code and applications that program them to spread the virus to application and system
Polymorphic Viruses
These can change its underlying code without changing its basic function or features. This helps viruses evade detention from antimalware.
Resident Viruses
This virus can embed in the system memory. The original program is not required to infect the application; even if the original code is deleted, the version stored in the memory can load whenever the operating system loads a particular system or function. These viruses are problematic because they can evade antivirus and antimalware software by hiding in the system’s RAM.
Rootkit Viruses
These perform installation of an unauthorized rootkit on the infected system, allowing attackers full control of the system with the ability to fundamentally modify or disable functions and programs.
Famous Computer Viruses
Want to know about some of the famous Computer viruses which cause so much trouble for our computer system? We never know how fast these viruses attack our system and leave us in a frustrating situation. So down below I have listed some of the famous Computer viruses.
Brain
The “Brain” virus that initially appeared in 1986, is assumed to be the first MS-DOS virus. It spread through the infected floppy disks and when you install it into the new PC, it would install itself into the system memory, and afterward, it would infect any disks inserted to that PC.
Jerusalem
The “Jerusalem” virus that was discovered in 1987 was known as the “Friday the 13th” virus. t spread through floppy disks and email attachments in whole Israel. This virus would infect the system and delete all programs when the calendar date on the system reach Friday 13th.
Melissa
The “Melissa” virus that initially appeared in 1999, was transferred through email. The virus would be sent to the first 50 people in an infected users’ contact list if the infected system had Microsoft outlook.
Archiveus
The “Archiveus” trojan in 2006 was the first case of a virus that encrypted the users’ files and data. It targeted windows systems, uses the RSA encryption algorithm, and demanded to purchase the product from the online pharmacy.
Jeus
The “Jeus” trojan was one of the well known and widely spread viruses that appeared in 2006 and continued to spread over the years. It was initially intended to infect the windows and produce banking credentials and account information from the victims.
Cabir
“Cabir” was the first verified mobile phone virus for Nokia Symbian operating system. It was created by the group called 29A that belongs to the Czech Republic and Slovakia, who sent it to a number of software companies including the United States and Russia.
Signs of Computer Virus
Have you ever been in a situation where you find unusual behavior in your computer system? You may ignore it for the first time but it keeps continuing and gives you irritation. So if you find the signs/symptoms which I have listed down below then your Computer system has a virus or malware. Have a little look down below about the signs of a Computer virus.
- The performance of the computer is slow and takes a long time to start up.
- The computer experiences frequent crashes and error messages.
- Corrupted email.
- Reduced storage.
- The data and files have been missing.
- Changes to your homepage and passwords.
How to Protect Your PC From Computer Virus?
You can apply the different measures to protect your Computer system from catching a dreadful virus. Anti-malware and antivirus software is the first thing to prevent your computer from a virus. But still, there are other methods that you can implement to get rid of viruses. Here, I have provided some tips to protect your PC from Computer thread.
Keep Your Software Up to Date
Software creators like Microsoft and Oracle routinely update their software to fix bugs that might be abused by programmers. Prophet just discharged on Sunday an update to its Java software to fix a security opening programmers could have used to taint computers with malware. The software fix came after the Department of Homeland Security conveyed a warning toward the end of last week about the security defect suggesting computer users debilitate the Java module in their Web programs.
Don’t Click on Links Within Emails
A decent general guideline is in the event that you don’t perceive a sender of an email, don’t tap on any links inside it. Microsoft says 44.8 percent of Windows infection diseases happen in light of the fact that the computer client tapped on something.
Use Free Antivirus Software
You don’t need to pay for software to ensure your computer or for a yearly membership to keep up the most recent infection assurance. For Windows users, Microsoft Security Essentials is free. Avast is another free enemy of the infection program.
Back-Up Your Computer
Do you consistently back up the data on your computer? On the off chance that you don’t – and 29 percent of computer users fall into that class – you have no assurance from calamites extending from hard drive inability to your home burning to the ground.
Use a Strong Password
A solid password is one that is mind-boggling, with a blend of letters, numbers, and images. While a few people utilize a similar password for everything, attempt to keep away from that training.
Conclusion
So, today you have learned about the viruses, type of viruses, famous viruses, their symptoms, and prevention measures. These Computer viruses are the most mind drilling thing ever which drills out mind and leave us on frustration. Therefore, As we all know “Prevention is better than cure” so always remember to follow the tips which I have explained above in this article to prevent your computer from viruses.
Share this information about these dangerous viruses with your friends. So your friends can also prevent their Computer from viruses.
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