Computer: Characteristics Of Virus & Antivirus

Computer Virus & Antivirus

Every individual undoubtedly heard a lot regarding computer viruses when they own their computers. Basically ‘virus’ name represents a biological origin. It is an organism that infects its host and starts damaging the system. A computer virus is the same as a biological virus or human virus which infects humans. Human virus attacks the human body, whereas computer virus attacks computer and it is intended to proliferate to several computers which are connected in the same network, same as common cold virus attacks its host and spread from one person to another person easily. A computer virus implies a specific code or simple program which is intended to cause chaos in its host computer.

A computer virus is designed to perform specific tasks which is having the capability to start destroying the normal function of a computer and spread quickly by whichever way possible. The property of copying quickly over computers is the most vindictive about a virus. Due to this, it is affecting multiple computers in a short period of time, especially to the computers to a network in organizations. Thus, causing large scale of damages to organizations with malicious virus code. A computer virus is sometimes getting more difficult to spot.

There are few types and ways of computer virus attacks infect the computer in their respective way to spread and damage the computers in an organization. Namely, there are boot sector virus, multipartite virus, macro virus, stealth virus, program virus, and polymorphic virus, FAT virus. Among these viruses, each one has a significant way to damage organizational data. They start affecting on hard drives, programming files, undesired insertion of data, redirect disk reads, binary patterns of data.

How computer virus infects computers

Computer virus infections are a nightmare for owners of organizations or for any firms. Basically, viruses can infect computers in organizations in multiple ways. Few ways where virus enters a computer is through bogus links, spam emails, unsecured internet sources, malicious downloads. Functions of computer viruses mainly depend on the replication of virus code into distributed computers over the network. It is activated by itself on computers by attaching to file, documents, or any kind of program. When it is inserted to the computer and the computer starts executing the program or reading the file, a document containing a virus, then next very soon the virus program will be activated. This virus program starts to execute a series of tasks intended to damage computer organizations’ data by deleting data, tracking the keystrokes, stealing passwords and logs, corrupting important company files, other relevant data etc.

Most of the employees or individuals feel that computer crashing or breakage happens as soon as virus attacks. These days it is more difficult to examine, detect viruses. Viruses can even remain dormant for a long period of time that can be days, weeks, or months, without knowing that computers are been infected by viruses. They remain shadowy inside most attachments, documents, programs to propagate and infect other computers. For this reason, computer virus removal is most important in the early stage of virus infection.

Causes of Computer Virus Outbreak

Downloading software from malicious sites: Sometimes employees or individuals start downloading required software through random sites. That is too dangerous as, viruses only come through inappropriate or tricky sites making easy downloads.

Email attachments: Employees often communicate via emails. It is now easy for viruses to spread through emails. Most of the times emails are tricked to look real and contain an attachment or links that will infect systems when clicked on.

Unpatched software: Computers are at high risk of virus infection through the unpatched software. Software vendors starts producing patches to java, a popular plugin used to view content on browsers that permitted hackers to use computers without minimal barriers of entry.

Removable storage devices: Most of people might not aware that virus infections can be transmitted through the storage devices like memory cards or USB flash drivers. In a company, employees can exchange large data through removable devices inconvenient way.

Unsecured Internet sources: This is the most commonplace source of processor viruses. Computers to get infected by virus when employees start clicking unsecured sites to download files. During work, employees should not try to access unsecured websites which cause virus infection for organization data.

Symptoms of a virus infection on computers

• Unresponsiveness
• Decrease in systems performance
• Frequent error messages
• Drop in storage space
• Replicating of data on their own
• Documents or programs corrupted
• Pop-ups showering the screen

An antivirus program is a kind of utility utilized for testing and expelling computer viruses from one’s computer. It is very important for organizations to add antivirus software to all computers over the network to secure firm data. While several types of software which have antivirus programs exist, their key aim is to shield computers do not get infected by viruses and evacuate any viruses which are discovered. Highly antivirus software or programs incorporate programmed and manual testing abilities. The programmed or automatic filtering focus on checking records that are taken from the wed sources, drivers which are plugged into the pc, and documents, files that are designed by software programmers. The programmed output may likewise examine the whole hard drive all the time. Other hands the manual scan choice allocates to filter singular documents or your whole framework at whatever point you feel it is vital. While latest computer viruses are continuously have being made by program attackers, anti-virus programs ought to maintain an efficient database of virus forms. This database incorporates a catalog of ‘virus definitions’ which implies antivirus programming software quotations when examining documents. Then always new viruses which are often circulated, now it is imperative to keep your product’s database modern with a computer virus.

References:

1. Christensson, P. (2010, November 23). Antivirus Definition. Retrieved 2020, Apr 2, from https://techterms.com/