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. A virus is a small organism that is only able to reproduce itself within another living cell or body. Body cells can be damaged as a result of a viral infection and an individual will become ill as consequence.

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. There are many similarities between human viruses and computer viruses. The virus can be anywhere on your computer, concealed within a program, file or document.

There are some clever individuals who have nothing worthwhile to do with their time that create and spread these computer viruses. 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. Computer viruses can affect every part of the computer preventing it from working properly. 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. As it is concealed and difficult to identify, it can be inadvertently passed on to other computer users.

Well, it 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. 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.