What Are Viruses

Tasks have indeed become easier with the advent of computer technology. Whether you are using your computer for business or pleasure, things have certainly become easier for you. But not everything has become more convenient with computers at all. Computers have also opened our world to a lot of harmful things found on the Internet right now. And these pesky things include viruses.

Viruses? What are viruses? And what do viruses have anything to do with computers? If you are not that much into computers, then it would make sense for you to ask: What are viruses? And if you want the question, “What are viruses?” answered, you would have to open your mind to the fact that there are indeed such things as computer viruses.

So, what are computer viruses, exactly? And what are some types of viruses known today? First off, let us establish the fact that viruses are not a freak of nature, as connoted by their biological counterparts. You should take note that viruses are actually intentionally made, not just to irritate users, but also to gather information about the users of the computer. And when you have legal information on your computer, any virus that’s undetected can be programmed to extract such information, for whatever purpose deemed by the perpetrator of the virus itself. Computer viruses can do as little damage, as merely programming your system to restart every so often, and as much damage, as deleting important files from virtually every hard drive in your system. What’s more, viruses are revised every day, due to the updates antivirus software have, for the purpose of thwarting them as well. So, no matter how updated your antivirus software is, computer viruses are always one step ahead. Thus, it is very important to know the common viruses that can be acquired from just about any source. You don’t have to know each and every one of them per se. Just be familiar with the common ones and their defining characteristics.

So, what are the common viruses? The virus leading any list would be the Trojan. This particular virus introduces a .dll file, which is placed into the EXPLORER.EXE. This is a process that can lead to instability of your whole system, if the virus is not detected right away. Ever experienced your computer crashing all of a sudden? If this is not some power surge problem, then you best check your system for viruses. There just might be a Trojan virus causing this problem.

Another known virus is the W32.Beagle.CO@mm. To access websites that have the utmost security, there are registry subkeys that need to be used. When your system is infected with this virus, the registry subkeys that you have been using to access such websites are deleted. This would make access to such websites difficult to do. This virus is often acquired via email. So, if you receive email from an unknown or suspicious user, then it’s best to delete that message right away. It could very well contain this virus.

Next on the list is the Backdoor.Zagaban. When your computer is infected with this virus, it unknowingly becomes a proxy server for the computer that sent you this virus. So, your Internet connection would lessen significantly. It is as if the perpetrator is hooked up to your very own Internet connection without you even knowing it. Processing files becomes daunting as well.

The list of viruses goes on and on and on. And this list will never be complete because there are a lot of malicious people out there who live for creating such viruses. Thus, it would be very, very important to have antivirus software installed onto your PC. And this has to be updated constantly, to ensure reliability and efficiency.