computer virus

Differences between Viruses, worms, and Trojan Horses Computer viruses are man-made program or a piece of code which can load onto your computer without your knowledge and cause damage to your computer system. The dangerous part of the computer viruses is they are attached to a file or program, which means the computer viruses will not running until you click the file or program, and even more dangerous type of viruses is one capable of transmitting itself across networks and bypassing security system. Worms are similar to computer viruses which they can replicate themselves to your computer, spread from computer to computer, but unlike a virus, it has the capability to travel without any human action. A worm takes advantage of file or information transport features on your system, which is what allows it to travel without any human action. The danger about the worms is the ability to reproduce and transmitting, so that worms can send hundreds or thousands of copies of themselves to other computers through your information transport features. For example, email, worm can send a copy of itself to everyone listed in your e-mail address book. Then, the worm replicates and sends itself out to everyone listed in each of the receiver 's address book. And also, due to the nature of reproducing, worms replicate themselves to consume the computer system memories, causes the system to slow down or even not responding. Trojan horse is a malware program containing malicious code that cannot self-reproduce. It can act as a backdoor which gives the access of the infected computer to the attacker, which causes information to be stolen. When a Trojan horse is actived on your computer, they can cause serious damage by deleting flies and destroying information on your system.
Therefore it’s important to know how to protect your computer and data. First step of all is making sure that your operating system is updated with latest security patches. Secondly, you should

References: http://www.liutilities.com/news/articles/article50/ http://www.antivirusworld.com/articles/keeping-your-pc-up-to-date.php http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/V/virus.html http://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Internet/virus.asp