What is a Computer virus?

Computer virus is a type of software or a program that has a malicious intent and will come attached onto a legitimate software. Once the computer is infected by a virus then it will make a copy of itself and spread through the systems.

Virus is developed with the malicious intent and attackers will use it to damage the system or to take control of it. Computer virus is like a biological virus; it doesn’t have the ability to spread itself; it latches itself onto another program and executes itself when the program runs.

Computer viruses are of different types. They all behave differently, therefore, to identify if your system is infected with a virus you have to check for the irregular activities on your system. Once you know that the system is infected you have to use an antivirus program to remove the infection from the system.

How do computer viruses spread?

In older days computer viruses spread from one computer to another computer via floppy disk. There was a virus called SCA virus that spreads amongst the Amiga users with pirated software. It was a harmless virus but at some point, more than 40% of the users were infected.

In today’s world latest computer virus spreads across from the internet. Applications infected with viruses are transferred across from one computer to another just like normal applications.

Today viruses include a code that is called a logic bomb that will ensure that the virus will only execute when a certain condition is met or at a specific time. Computer users will unknowingly install the application and transfer them to another computer.

Applications that are infected can also be mailed to someone or they can be downloaded from infected code or the infected app store. Victim needs to execute the application or the program in order to get infected. Users on the internet usually can get infected just by opening the email. The answer to that question is not you cannot get infected just by opening the email, you have to download the attachment and execute it in order to get infected. However now almost every mail client has a virus scanner that will scan the email for viruses.

Computer viruses can also spread through storage devices. If we transfer data from one device to another using storage devices the virus can be transferred from one computer to another.

Another method using which viruses can infect the computer is if the virus code runs as a JavaScript on the web browser and takes advantage of security loopholes to infect the computer. Some of the email clients will run the HTML and JavaScript code in the email so you can get infected by clicking on the email. Modern email clients have the security feature that will prevent your computer from getting infected.

The Internet is filled with programs, applications and files that are infected with viruses. You just have to make sure that you are downloading from a reliable source.

Computer virus symptoms

Infected computers will behave erratically. You will notice change in the working of the computer if your system gets infected. Once your system is infected then you will notice changes in the system.

How can you tell if your computer is infected?

Unlike ransomware, the virus does not prompt you with the message that it has taken over the computer. Virus will stay alive in the background and damage the system and leak the sensitive data from your system. If the virus is dormant then you won’t be able to see any major difference, however, if the virus gets active then you will see a major difference in the system performance.

There are different symptoms that you will see on your system that are infected with viruses.

Some symptoms are:

• System will be slow and decrease performance.
• System will crash frequently.
• Unwanted programs will be installed on your system and will start at the system start-up.
• Unwanted email being sent from your email address.
• Unable to login into computer or other accounts.
• Changes homepage of the browser.
• Suspicious pop ups occur on the systems.

If your system has been infected then you have to scan your system with an antivirus program.

Verdict:

Computers can be infected with viruses by different methods. We have to make sure that we are using reliable sources to download software and files. We also have to make sure that we do not download any attachments from unknown emails.

If your system is infected then you will know by the symptoms we have mentioned above. Most of all your system will become so slow that you won’t be able to perform a single task on the system.