Viruses :: essays research papers

Most of us change over disks with friends and browse the Net looking for downloads. R arly do we ever cast that we atomic number 18 besides exchanging files with anyone and everyone who has ever handled them in the past. If that sounds like a ideal about social diseases, its right along the same lines. Computer viruses atomic number 18 every bit as malign and destructive, and come in a vast variety of types and strains. Computer viruses, can tear up your exhausting drive and bring down your system. However, unlike social diseases, computer viruses are almost always curable, and the cures for new strains are usually a subject area of days away, rather than months or years.A computer virus is a architectural plan designed to replicate and spread, generally with the victim being absent-minded to its existence. Computer viruses spread by attaching themselves to other programs such as devise processors or spreadsheets, or to the boot sector of the disk. When an tarnished fil e is activated, or when the computer is started from an infected disk, the virus itself is also activated. Many times a virus will lurk in a computers stock, waiting to infect the next program or disk that is activated. What makes viruses so dangerous is their efficacy to perform an event. While some events are harmless like displaying a message on a certain date, and others annoying, like slowing mathematical process or altering the screen display, some viruses can be grim by damaging files, and destroying data.Most viruses are created out of curiosity. There are those out there who create them out of malice, but far more(prenominal) of the creators are just meeting a challenge, to see if they can do it or not. A common type of virus would be a Trojan Horse, a destructive program disguised as a game, a utility, or an application. When run a Trojan Horse does something harmful to the computer system, while appearing to do something useful. A worm is also a popular type of viru s. A worm is a program that spreads itself across computers, usually by spawning copies of itself in each computers memory. A worm might duplicate itself in one computers memory so often that it causes the computer to crash. A worm is introduced secretly into a host system either for fun, or with the intent to damage or destroy information. Now I will explain some of the more major viruses, and how they function.