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Anti-Virus Software
A computer virus is software that runs on
your personal computer without your consent
and without your control. Viruses are generally
only annoying and intrusive; however, many
viruses intentionally interfere with the
use of your personal computer cause it to
crash, or capture or destroy data. Some viruses
may even wreak havoc beyond your computer
and produce coordinated attacks on company
web sites on the Internet.
Like its biological counterpart, a computer
virus can spread from one computer to another,
infecting each with its behavior. Viruses
differ from other types of unwanted software
on your computer by replicating on their
own and without any conscious help from the
computer owner.
Viruses generally come along
with software
or files that you download from
sites on
the Internet or as attachments
to email.
A virus can be part of the downloaded
program,
embedded in a word processing
or spreadsheet
program, or a separate additional
program
that installs with a downloaded
program.
The surest way to avoid viruses
is to never
download and install anything
from the Internet
or accept files from the network
through
email. More practically, you
should be wary
of installing software from a
site that is
not well known and purchase a
special program
to protect against and eliminate
viruses.
Virus protection programs operate in one
of two ways: on demand, they can look through
the files on your computer and identify those
that are viruses, or they can run all the
time checking that everything coming to your
computer from the Internet is free of viruses.
Because of the extreme danger that viruses
can pose, most antiviral software runs continuously
and checks everything coming to your personal
computer from the network for evidence of
a virus. In either form, the virus protection
software looks for patterns in the binary
files that match patterns in its list of
known viruses. If anything matches one of
the known patterns, the virus protection
program warns of the danger, blocks its receipt,
or deletes it.
In order for your protection against viruses
to remain effective, you must update the
list of patterns regularly from the vendor
of the virus eliminator. |
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