Lets’ learn about Internet and Viruses today.  

Internet

The Internet is a global computing platform providing a wide variety of information and communication facilities consisting of standards protocols to follow.

The internet and viruses are the two most important things that must be known by everyone. The presence of internet has a severe chance of attacking by a virus. So, before proceeding ahead lets’ know about the virus, a computer virus.

 

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Virus - A  Computer Virus

Generally, a computer virus is a type of computer program that has the potential to replicate by making multiple copies of itself without the user's knowledge or consent. This is a serious threat nowadays because it leads to cyber crimes.

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 Ways Of Spreading Of Virus

The Virus is not limited to one way of transfer. There are varied ways by which a computer virus can spread. The ways are;

  1. The opening of an infected email attachment. This seems to be harmless to people but it is a real threat to networks.
  1. By downloading the infected programs from the internet. You can grab some good amounts of viruses.
  1. If you are using infected pen drives, CDs or floppy disk virus can easily spread to the system.
  1. By transferring an infected program over a network and executing it on your devices. (Most common way).

Type Of Computer Virus

A computer virus is not of one type.

It has varied forms and the forms are;

The File Infecting Virus

The file infecting viruses is a type of virus that infects the program files on a disk. When this infected program is launched, the virus is also activated. As soon the virus gets launched, it will load itself and execute the infected program.

The Boot Sector Virus

The Boot Sector virus is considered one of the most hostile types of virus. A boot sector virus mainly infects the boot record of a hard or a floppy disk. The virus moves the boot sector data to a different part of a disk. This virus allows the actual boot sector data to be read as though a normal startup were occurring. This proves to be a fatal threat to computers.

The Multipartite Virus

Actually, this virus is the combination of parasitic and boot sector virus.

And due to this, it is able to infect both the files or boot sector of a disk. They severely infect the program files and then it is executed. And, these viruses affect the boot record and corrupt it.

The Macro Virus

The Macro Viruses infect the Microsoft Office programs such as PowerPoint, Word, Excel, etc. When we open the Microsoft program then the virus is loaded. And, it affects the normal template or document. Since it is attached to the document, if the infected document is opened on another computer, it affects the computer too. This is a chain form of spreading viruses in the computers.

The Script Virus

 The Script Virus is written in script programming languages, such as VBScript and JavaScript. It can infect a computer through various scripting environments; such as Windows Help, etc. So, maintain a good level of security in the computers to free the system from viruses.

 Question

  1. What is an Internet?
  2. What is a computer virus?
  3. Explain the ways of spreading viruses?
  4. What are the types of viruses? Explain each of them.

Symptoms Of A Computer Virus

  1. 1. The program takes a long time to load than usual time.
  1. All the files are renamed with different names.
  1. The computer shows unusual error messages on the screen frequently.
  1. It usually happens that the system gets corrupted or deletes the system data and programs.

How Can We Protect The Computer?

By installing a reliable Anti-virus software on the computer which protects the system from any threat. Basically, an anti-virus software is a computer program designed to detect and remove viruses from the computer system.

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How The Antivirus Works?

It generally avoids the virus attacks;

  1. By scanning the email attachment before executing them on the computer.
  1. Use of a good anti-virus program to scan for viruses.
  2. Always scanning the disk frequently for viruses.
  1. Not installing the pirated software, especially computer games. Because pirated software contains the most of the viruses that can harm the computer system adversely.

Questions

  1. What are the symptoms of a computer virus?
  2. How can we protect the computer?
  3. How does an anti-virus work? Explain.

Recap

  • Meaning of Internet and Virus.
  • Ways of spreading a computer virus.
  • Types of computer viruses file infecting, boot sector, multipartite, macro and the script virus.
  • Symptoms of a computer virus.
  • How can we protect the computer?
  • Anti-virus and its functioning.