Computer Virus Resources
A computer virus is nothing more than an application that can replicate itself on the infected computer. A computer virus has the ability to infect other computers through email or networks and can have damaging effects to those that are not protected.
Viruses of all kinds are attacking computers all the time.
They infect our computers after getting covertly downloaded from the internet. They cause annoyances by sending pop ups and ads all over our screen.
They infiltrate us with spyware, sending often private information into the wrong hands. They can even delete our files and completely crash our computer system. Read more
Macs aren’t immune to viruses anymore. Perhaps they never really were and the legend of Apple just got a bit carried away.
Every now and then viruses have been found, even in the latest wonder that is OS X. Still, the threats are so minimal when compared to Windows-based viruses that many Mac users scoff at the idea of installing antivirus software. Besides, there are so few viruses that have passed through Macs that it wouldn’t be hard for the average computer student to recite them all by heart. Read more
Before we can comprehend how a computer virus works, it is important to realize what a virus does when it attacks the human body.
A small organism, a virus is only able to reproduce itself within another living cell or body.
Poor health occurs as a result of a viral infection and body cells are destroyed or damaged as a result.
Able to reproduce itself within another cell or body, the word virus is Latin for ‘poison’ and that is basically what it is – a ‘poison’, an example of an illness caused by a virus is the common cold.
How does this relate to computers?
Usually the computer virus is hidden within a program, file or document which means it can be anywhere on your pc.
There are some clever individuals who have nothing worthwhile to do with their time that create and spread these computer viruses.
Causing havoc is the main reason for doing this. Similar to a common virus like the flu (which spreads from person to person), the computer virus has the ability to spread and ‘infect’ other computers, files or documents.
The computer can be prevented from working correctly by a computer virus. As well as through the Internet and through local computer networks, it can multiply through removable storage devices such as memory sticks and floppy disks.
Because most computer viruses are hidden, they become very hard to detect and remove and it can be spread to other computers, unknowingly, by the computer user.
It works in a similar way to human viruses (like influenza) by making a person unwell.
The amount of damage caused by a ‘digital virus’ is dependent upon what it has been instructed to do. What we mean by this is that every computer virus that is created has a specific role whether it is to trigger some event on your computer in the distant future very much like a Trojan does, or simply be something that has been created to be destructive as possible once it has infected your computer.
Make sure you are protected from any computer virus online at all times with a suitable antivirus program.
We’re all being warned about widespread Worms, Adware, Spyware and the dreaded Computer Virus that can threaten our network security even steal our identity.
However, would you know how to spot these electronic threats?
Most of us know little beyond installing an antivirus program, and the people who design these viruses are always building a better way to catch you out.
Consequently, new internet security software can quickly become obsolete, especially for those who neglect to update the software. In this article, we’ve got some useful tips on how to protect your computer from catching a computer virus and any other damaging programs.
A computer virus is a program that re-creates itself. It can attach to other programs and/or create copies of itself. Once a virus evades your internet security software and finds its way into your computer it can damage or corrupt data, change data, or degrade the performance of your system by utilizing resources such as memory or disk space.
A computer virus can be a Boot sector computer virus, Master Boot Record (MBR) computer virus, File infecting computer virus, or a Macro computer virus. A computer virus which displays characteristics of more than one of these categories is known as a multipartite computer virus.
Internet surfing and emails are the most common means of contracting a virus. You can be surfing and catch a virus without even knowing it. To surf safely, get a router even if you aren’t running a network. The router will act as a hardware firewall if a hacker is trying to scan your computer.
You should also get a good antivirus program or internet security suite which can protect you from all online threats as well as having a firewall. PC Tools is one such provider that has all the tools you need to stay protected online, but there are a number of free programs as well. However, some of them will only protect you from a limited number of viruses, which is really a waste of your time and effort to even install them..
In the past it was the Floppy disk which were the most common ways viruses are transmitted, now it is the thumb drives every one is using and interchanging into each others computers. You should always scan thumb drives with your antivirus program before using them, especially if you’re moving from one computer to another. You could easily pick up a virus from an insecure network and introduce it into your system.
Email is another common culprit. It may be tempting to quickly whip through your email, but you should carefully examine attachments and scan them for viruses before you open them. Even if you do recognize the sender, the attachment could still be infected.
In fact, some viruses are designed to copy information from your contact list and spread the virus to everyone on it. Your email program should have safety options, a spam filter or a preferences menu for instructions.
For us any emails we receive an unknown sender that comes with an attachment is deleted without opening it no matter how tempting it may be to look at. Those attachments can contain the virus that will corrupt your computer.
As an example of how easy it is to become infected I was updating my anti-virus application which also had email scanning capabilities and during the process I was asked to allow the program to close so the update could complete its process. What I did not realize was that my mail client was still open and checking emails every five minutes and downloading any received into my inbox on my hard drive.
Once the updates had finished I was then prompted to restart my machine which I did. Once rebooted my Anti-Virus program was reporting errors and I started to receive pop up messages on my screen. I tried numerous times to get my anti-virus program restarted but each time I tried my computer would reboot itself, it actually started to behave like it had a mind of its own.
What had happen during the updating process and because I had left my email client open and continued to download emails which were not be scanned it left my computer unprotected with the end result being a very severe Malware infection which caused me four days of downtime and countless hours of trying to fix the problem.
The most important thing that you can do for your computer is to install good internet security software and be conscious of Internet security. Webroot is one of the world’s leading internet security companies and has applications that can also protect your Smart Phones and Mobile devices. It runs continuously in the background of your computer, providing constant protection from viruses, Trojan horses, worms and other malicious code.
Webroot will automatically update its software with new definitions with the latest protection whenever you’re online to stop any new computer virus from infiltrating your computer.
Viruses are circulating all over the internet and are traveling from one computer to the next via email, disk drives, flash drives and certain peripherals simply because many people still do not understand the importance of antivirus software..
The fact of the matter is, almost all of those viruses were associated with PCs, Windows based machines, and not any of the computers created by Apple.
In saying that , why would they be a need to have any antivirus software installed on a Mac? And even the software companies reflected that in the early days, you could not buy antivirus programs for a Mac anywhere.
Well, for along time the team at Apple Mac had been blowing their own horns and yelling out loud and clear that their Mac computers were pretty much immune to viruses.
Whether or not this was ever said as bluntly as that is and will always be debated, but their commercials have made statements that at least imply that the virus threat to their system doesn’t exist.
Well that’s what I picked up from the TV commercials anyway, what about you?
Initially most Mac computer users boasted about their systems, stating their systems were perfectly safe whereas PCs are all under threat from many different viruses and spyware.
From what we could find, since the release of OS X on the Macs back around turn of this century (2000), there have been an incredibly few number of viruses to ever hit the Mac systems. Few is the crucial word in that last sentence.
It means that there’s only a minimal threat. At the same time however, it also means very clearly that there is some kind of threat.
As soon as those initial threats were discovered, Apple made a big effort at patching up the vulnerabilities thereby making those viruses somewhat irrelevant to their system. They turned that around pretty quickly in fact and that in itself makes the need for an actual antivirus application somewhat redundant.
Things are changing very fast though. Initially only a few viruses, just like with the PC but then it grows as more and more people start to use the Macs.
So will those threats become significant enough that antivirus software applications are necessary? The jury is still out,being the online community as the debates still rages to some degree. There are ongoing arguments still today as to how vulnerable Macs really are or ever were.
Many still claim today that they are inherently more secure from viruses an online threats than PCs but it’s not being to honest if you claim they are perfect.
Many people have argued though that the reason they were so invulnerable for so long was simply because not enough people owned them to make the attacks worthwhile. But now if you take a look around you will see different programs arriving on the shelves specially designed to protect the MAC.
In recent years though a lot has changed for the Apple Mac where it has started using the same type of processor chip that Windows based PCs use, and it has been explained that this alone can open them up for the same type of virus threats that Windows PCs have been open to for such a long time.
One of the more recent concerns is the way in which viruses and other threats such as spyware can exploit parts of a Mac system that aren’t directly related to the apparently secure operating system. It is a well known fact that Web browsers may have allowed varying threats to get onto your Macs system.
This has been happening a lot more in recent years and is only going to keep growing unless you take action to protect your Mac from these threats.
The bottom line is that the uncertainty of this online threat should be enough reason for you to put an antivirus software application on your Mac, even if you don’t think you need it.
You should also be aware of this, those other threats that aren’t necessarily viruses such as adware and spyware, Malware are starting to turn up in greater numbers.
After reading this post I hope you now understand how important it is to protect yourself and your Mac against those threats using antivirus software with built in protection from spyware as well.
The protection of our PC is very important for almost every computer’s user.
Since we do use our PC every day, either at work or for personal use, we do need it to work without fail.
This is why it is very important to learn more about viruses and such that might compromise our PC.
Besides knowing how to delete them if appropriate. A recent threat that belongs to the malware family is being called “Your PC Protector“. This means that it is a program that tricks people into thinking it is actually an antivirus and has two purposes: to infect the computer and to steal money from users.
The following website computer virus removal has good info about virus removal.
Once installed on your PC, this rogue program will modify your browser’s settings. That will results that you will get lots of popups and ads. You will then have lots of troubles when visiting websites. This Malware will redirect you to others compromised websites.
This program was also designed to rob you. This spyware will claim that your PC has lots of infections. Then if you buy the online registered version of it, you will be able to repair your system.
Here is how to remove Your PC Protector, you will find more info about removing this Malware while this site computer repair service is a great online repair service ready to help you to remove this virus.
When it comes to getting rid of the application, there are two options that has: manual removal or automatic removal of the virus. You should know more about each of these in order to be able to choose the option that fits you best.
You can find on the Internet the right application to help you do the automatic removal of Your PC Protector (aka Your PC Protection). You will be able with such an application to entirely scan your computer and to find all damaged files (because of this Malware).
One of the best programs for this is called Malware Bytes you can get a 30 day free trial of paid version.
After that, to repair or delete once for all those files will be done just in a few minutes. The manual removal of this Malware is more complicated and takes more time. Main reason being you have to find each file that has been infected.
This option is good for those with good knowledge of PC systems. If not, I suggest you choose the other automatic removal method.