computer viruses
...programs or documents. For example, a virus can be attached to a spreadsheet program, then each time you run the program, you run the virus as well, giving it a chance to reproduce. E-mail viruses move around in e-mail messages and they multiply by automatically mailing itself to everyone in the person’s email address book. According to Marshall Brain’s article “How Computer Viruses Work”: “A worm is a small piece of software that uses computer networks and security holes to replicate itself. A copy of the worm scans the network for another machine that has a specific security hole. It copies itself to the new machine using the security hole, and then starts replicating itself from there, as well.” Worms copy themselves repeatedly until there is no more memory or disc space remaining. A Trojan horse is just a computer program that claims to be something like a game, but really does a lot of damage to your computer (like erasing your hard disk). The difference with this infection is that Trojan horses cannot replicate it self. There are some viruses that freeze your computer for a, others might have a time bomb which will do the damage on a certain date, or a logic bomb activates itself when a specific action is made by the victim. Next, how can you detect a computer virus? Anti-virus programs have been developed to help find computer viruses. They can find, remove, and even repair files and programs that have been damaged by the virus. But, sometimes there are some files that cannot be repaired unfortunately. Something else to do is to watch out for the e-mail you receive. There are some e-mail viruses like the “I LOVE YOU” virus, which had some devastating effects worldwide. Be cautious if you don’t know who the sender is. Personally, I never open e-mails from an address that I do not know. Furthermore, how do you know if you have a computer virus in your computer? If you get return emails that say that it was returned due to a virus, this probably means you have a virus. Many email servers have programs that detect viruses, so they will reject a message that contains one. If some files have disappeared from your computer or are all messed up when you try to open them, this could mean that you have a virus. If opening a file takes a very long time, or you find that your computer is crashing an awful lot, there is a good chance that there is a virus in your computer, doing it’s damage. Lastly, how can we prevent computer viruses from invading our computers? Here are some tips for safeguarding our computers. Buying a Virus Protection Software is a very good idea if you are using an unsecured operating system. McAfee VirusScan for Windows and Virex for Macintosh are two good programs. Switching to an email account that offers virus scanning is also a good idea. I have an account with Hotmail, and every time you have to down...