WHAT IS COMPUTER VIRUS AND ITS TYPES | HOW TO PROTECT YOUR PC FROM VIRUS

What is Computer Virus and its Types ? How to Protect you PC from Virus ?

Are you interested to know What is Computer Virus and its Types ? How to Protect your PC from Virus ? Everyone knows how to use the computer and people who use the computer must have heard the name of the Virus.


Virus, this name is a very familiar name in the world of Internet. Along with this, it is also a very scary name because it is very harmful for your computer and other electronic gadgets. That is, if it enters a system once, then it can theft its data or modify it or can even destroy its data.



Just like Virus is not good for our health and they spread many diseases in our body, in the same way these Virus also cause many damage in the computer system. Therefore, it is good for all computer users to keep information about them.


Computer Virus : Many people know something about the term virus and what it is and what it does. But there are many people who may have heard the name of the virus but they still not know what the virus can do in a computer.


So today in this article I am going to tell you about What is a virus and its Types and How to Protect your PC from Virus. Hopefully you will get to know a lot by reading this article.

What is a Computer Virus ?

Virus

Computer Virus is a small software program that is designed to harm your computer by ceratin operations like, deleting your data, modifying your data or by thefting your data. It can also destroy a system completely.


Computer virus without our knowledge can harm our system in such a way that it will not be possible for us to fix it again. The computer runs on software programs, without software programs the computer cannot work a bit even.


Software programs are to make computer work properly and also there are some programs made to destroy the computer which are these Virus


Humans invented the computer system. Human made programs to run the computer and we only i.e. humans created virus to destroy it. Computer virus is not natural, they are not made by themselves, programmers also make it consciously so that they can cause harm to other computers.


We can also say that Virus are actually computer programs that are destructive instead of productive. Its basic purpose is to damage to the place of providing help.

History of Computer Viruses

The first engineer who first developed a computer virus was Robert Thomas. He then worked at BBN Technologies in 1971.


This first virus was named as "Creeper" virus, and it was an experimental program that Robert Thomas himself had done to infect the mainframes of ARPANET. After infecting the system, it displayed the following message on the screen, "I'm the creeper: Catch me if you can."


The original wild computer virus that was first tracked was "Elk Cloner." This Elk Cloner had previously infected Apple II operating systems through floppy disks. Richard Skrenta created this virus in 1982, who was a teenager at the time.


Initially computer viruses were designed for prank, but it seemed that if a malicious program is installed inside the computer then it can do many destructive things without the information of the user. You can not even stop them further and you will not have any control over these malicious programs. .


The first person to coin the term “Computer Virus" was Fred Cohen, who named it in 1983. This name came in front of people when he mentioned these programs in an academic paper which was titled as "Computer Viruses - Theory and Experiments" where he wrote full information about these malicious programs like how it works, what it Can do etc.

What can Computer Viruses do ?

Computer virus can corrupt or delete or modify the data in the system. It can completely eliminate the data stored in your hard disk. Computer virus can also destroys systems by going to other computers through e-mail attachments.


Virus slows down the speed of your computer. It destroys your files and program.

What is Malware ?

Malware's full name is malicious software. It is also a software program that gives access to computers. Malicious software means harmful software which is not good at all. Once it enters in your system, it can completely destroy your computer.


Malware is also the name of a virus which slowly starts erasing the data of your system.



Where do Malware come into our computer? Malware can come from any places in our system and the most common source today is internet.


We surf internet to get information every day. If we visit to any malicious site to get the same information or download pirated software, games and movies from these malicious site, then malware can enter into our computer from there without our information.


In this way online malware gets into our computer. Let us know how offline malware gets into our computer.


We all use Pendrive, CDs, DVDs in our computers. When we connect Pendrive and CDs from our place to get data from our computer, then malware comes into our computer from all these things and our computer destroy data.

What are the Types of Malware ?

Malware are of three types - Virus, Worms and Trojan horse. These three are different, their work is also different. These three spoil your computer in different ways. Let us know about these three and what they do.

What is a Virus ?

Virus are small software programs that can corrupt the files and software in your computer. Suppose there is a word document in your system in which virus has entered then it will delete the data of your document or corrupt the document from which you will not get any information from it.


Or it could also be that this virus can completely corrupted your word processing software. In such a situation, if you copy or share a corrupted file, then this virus goes to a different computer and also harms the other system.

What are the types of Virus ?

Computer virus may be a sort of malware that if entered into the computer's memory, then it can multiply itself automatically and may also change programs, applications.


It infects computer when these malicious codes keep replicating themselves. Here I am going to provide information to you about the types of these computer viruses.




• Boot Sector Virus

This type of virus infects the master boot record and removing them is a very difficult task and often the system has to be formatted to remove them. These are mainly spread by removable media.


• Direct Action Virus

They are also called non-resident virus, once it's installed, it remains hidden within the memory . It stays attached with the specific type of files that it infects. They do not infect user experience and system’s performance.


• Resident Virus

Just like Direct Action viruses, resident viruses also gets installed within the computer. Apart from this, identifying them is also a very difficult task.


• Multipartite Virus

Multipartite virus can affect the system in multiple ways. These virus can infect both the executable files and boot sector simultaneously.


• Polymorphic Virus

Identifying these types of viruses is a very difficult thing for a traditional anti-virus program, as these viruses change their signature pattern frequently whenever they replicate themselves.


• OverWrite Virus

Overwrite virus deletes all that files which it infects. To remove these viruses from the system, the user has to delete all the infected files, causing data loss.


It is a very difficult thing to recognize these viruses as they spread through emails.


Spacefiller Virus - Also called "Cavity Viruses". They have been given this name because it fills all the spaces in the code, so it does not harm the files.


• File Infector Virus

Some file infector viruses attach to program files, such as .com or .exe files. Some file infector viruses also infect files with  .prg, .mnu, .sys and .ovl.


In the same way when a specific program is additionally loaded, the virus also gets loaded automatically. These viruses come in the users' computer with email.


• Macro Viruses

As suggested within the name, these macro viruses mainly target macro language commands only in some applications like Microsoft Word.


These macro viruses are designed in such a way that it easily adds its malicious code to genuine macro sequences.


• OverWrite Viruses

This virus has been designed in such a way that it can overwrite itself and destroy any file or application data. It starts to overwrite its own code once it starts an attack.


• Polymorphic Viruses

This type of virus is used more often by cybercriminals. This is a kind of malware which will easily change or mutate its underlying code and without changing any basic functions or features.


This does not make it vulnerable to anti-malware. Whenever an anti-malware detects it, it modifies itself, making it very difficult to detect it.




• Resident Viruses

This virus implants itself within the memory of the pc . Basically, there's no need of original virus program for infection to infect any files or program. Even if we delete the first virus, a version of it's stored in memory, itself gets activates.


Usually this thing happens when computer OSs loads either some applications or some functions. Since it is hidden in the system's RAM, therefire it is not detected by any antivirus or antimalware.


• Rootkit Viruses

This rootkit virus is a type of malware that secretly installs an illegal rootkit in the infected system. With this, it opens a door for the attackers which gives them full control over the system.


With this, the attacker can fundamentally modify or disable a program or function. These rootkit virus can bypass antivirus software very easily. Rootkit scanner is required to capture them.


• System or Boot-record Infector Viruses

These boot-record infectors infect executable code that is found in specific system areas of the disk. As the name suggests, they infect USB thumb drives and DOS boot sector more.


These boot viruses are not seen much these days because the present system does not depend on much physical storage media.

What are Worms ?

Worms are also like viruses, but they multiply themselves and try to spread themselves as much as possible. Which means that if there are worms in your system, then they start making many copies of different files, due to which the system slows down.


If we copy and share the same files with another computer, then worms will slow down that computer by going there too and making many copies of files.

What is Trojan Horse ?

Trojan Horse are very dangerous malware. These malware come by hiding their identity in your computer just like the story of the Trojan Horse.


For example, if you are using the internet and you have visited a site, there is an attractive add such as "click here to win smartphone" and if you click on it, then you have created a chance for Malware to enter into your system. It will enter in your system and will start harming it without any information of user.


These are present on the internet as a genuine software, you'll think that it's a real software, but actually it has a trojan that is hidden inside that software and once it comes in your computer, then it Start slowing down your system. With that, it would open a door so that different kinds of viruses and worms get into your computer.

Signs of Virus Infection in the System

How to know if your system is infected with Virus or not. I am going to tell you about some warning signs below, which is very important to know for all computer users :-



• Slower system performance


• Frequent pop-ups on the screen


• Programs executing automatically


• Files automatically multiplying / duplicating


• New files and programs are automatically installed in the computer


• Files, folders or programs are automatically getting deleted and corrupted


• Weird sound from hard drive


If you see such warnings in your system then you should know that your system has been infected by virus. Therefore, you should soon download a good antivirus and scan your

How to Protect Your System from Viruses and Worms

Here I am going to give you some tips that will make it easier for you to avoid these viruses.

What should be done :

1. Always install  the best Antivirus in your system and keep it updating regularly.


2. Do not download anything from Unauthorized Websites such as MP3, Movies, Software etc.


3. Get all the downloaded things scanned properly. Because they are more likely to have a virus.


4. Use removable media such as pendrive, only after scanning the disks.


5. If you visit any website, then you should take care of one thing that it is a trusted and registered website and do not click on any such link, which will cause you trouble later.

What Should NOT be done :

1. Never open an email attachment, if you do not know about that sender.


2. Do not try to open any unsolicited executable files, documents, spreadsheets, without scanning.


3. Do not download documents or executable software from untrusted websites.


4. Ads that give you greed, click here and win lottery, then never click on such attractive ads. Similar greed comes to us in e-mails too, so you should never open that mail as there are more chances of malware in it.

Conclusion

I hope you have liked this article on What is Computer Virus and its Types ? How to Protect your PC from Virus ? It has always been my endeavor to provide complete information about this topic to the readers, so that they do not have to search for any further information on internet regarding this article. 


This will also save their time and they will also get all the information at one confined place. If you have any doubts regarding this article or you want that there should be some improvement in it, then please tell us by commenting below.


If you liked this post on What is Computer Virus and its Types ? How to Protect your PC from Virus or got to learn something, then please share this post on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites.