How To Determine And What To Do If A Computer Virus Is Found?

How To Determine And What To Do If A Computer Virus Is Found? The Virus And Its Description. Just as a human virus is passed from person to person, a computer virus is passed between computers. It s a program that can copy itself and infect your machine without permission or knowledge of the user. This is an executable program and designed to spread itself by first infecting executable files or the system areas of hard and floppy disks and then making copies of itself. Strange as it may sound, the computer virus is something of an Information Age marvel. Viruses can spread quickly through today s intricate cyber world. Viruses and the people who write them are intriguing subjects. Their code which has been published but not actually found spreading out of control is not usually regarded as being in-the-wild. Viruses usually operate without the knowledge or desire of the computer user and can be divided into two types, on the basis of their behavior when they are executed. Viruses are sometimes confused with worms and Trojan horses, in fact viruses have targeted various types of transmission media or hosts. Moreover viruses are software programs, and they can do the same things as any other programs running on a computer. They have the potential to infect any type of executable code, not just the files that are commonly called program files . Distribution Of Infected Files. A virus can only spread from one machine to another when its host is taken to the uninfected machine, for instance by a user sending it over a network or the Internet, or by carrying it on a removable medium such as a floppy disk, CD, or USB drive. Nonresident viruses immediately search for other hosts that can be infected, infect these targets, and finally transfer control to the application program they infected. If a user tries to start an infected program, the virus code may be executed first. Antivirus And How It Works. Antivirus software is important not only for the protection of your computer, but also the protection of the computers that you are linked to. Once installed, it can be set to work in the background. Bait files (or goat files) are files that are specially created by antivirus software, or by antivirus professionals themselves, to be infected by a virus. The infected files can be used to test whether scanner detects all versions of the virus. Antivirus programs scan disk and memory looking for telltale signs of viruses called signatures. Some viruses try to avoid detection by killing the tasks associated with antivirus software before it can detect them. Most modern programs try to find virus-patterns inside ordinary programs by scanning them for so-called signatures. If a virus scanner finds such a pattern in a file, it notifies the user that the file is infected. The user can then delete, or (in some cases) "clean" or "heal" the infected file. Update And Scan Regularly. In order to take advantage of new antivirus databases, you must update your antivirus program on a regular basis. The database is maintained and updated around the clock. Usually database is updated automatically every time a user connects to the Internet. Preferably, the software itself and its database is updated manually or by downloading new software virus information from a website via Internet. Scan your computer on a regular basis and any new programs or other files that may contain executable code before you run or open them, no matter where they come from. MacroVirus - Free Scan Any SpyWare Or Hiding Viruses In Your System Now.