What is a virus?

Without getting too technical a virus or rather a computer virus to be more specific is a piece of code that was developed and deployed with a malicious intent. Often viruses are used as the generic term for a computer security threat. Terms like Trojans, Spyware, Worms are terminologies that apply to specific types of computer security threats each with very specific attributes that warrant the unique names. Trojans and Spyware are special types of programs that appear useful on the surface but underneath it is a more sinister intent typically involving stealing information and monitoring behaviour to serve obtrusive ads. Worms are special types of threat that are deployed through the network and nothing can be done to stop them without firewall software.

How do I know if I have a virus?

While some viruses are so devastating that it doesn’t take much to realise that your computer is infected others are a little more sneaky, often hiding themselves in the background waiting for a specific event like a date or a command from a remote server to awaken and do it’s damage. Some viruses aren’t even designed to harm the computer as such but rather take control of it to be able to launch what’s called a denial of service (DoS) attack on a target server. This involves sending lots of requests from different computers to overload a server and cause it to crash. It’s a common part of the toolkit of hackers whether they be driven by a political, economic or even social agenda.

The only real way to know is to run an antivirus software programme like Norton antivirus 2009 which can effectively detect the latest threats and is your best way of not only finding it but also getting rid of it and making sure that the threat doesn’t visit you again to cause more havoc.

If you want to find out more about what is a computer virus, worm virus, Trojan or spyware go to antivirusreviews.com/