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A virus is simply a program [program: An organised list of instructions that, when executed, causes the computer to behave in a predetermined manner. ] designed to cause harm to someone else's computer. A virus spreads by duplicating and attaching itself to other files. The extent of the damage depends on the virus. There are tens of thousands of viruses. Some virus damage is insignificant but inconvenient. Some virus damage is disastrous, putting the computer system out of action by erasing fileserasing files : The deletion of files stored on a computer. or corrupting datadata: information which has been organised or presented for analysis.
How do you catch a virus?
Viruses are written by malicious programmers who wish to cause problems to other computer users.
The primary source of infection these days are e-mail attachments followed by illegal software and infected files from the Internet. Also, by putting an infected floppy diskfloppy disk: 3.5-inch portable magnetic disks. into your computer - the virus can automatically copy itself from the infected disk into your computer
If you have up to date anti-virus software installed this will immediately warn you of any infection. If not, there is usually no evidence of the virusvirus: A virus is programming code which spreads from computer to computer and can cause damage to data files. A virus spreads by duplicating and attaching itself to other files. and the user is not usually aware of it until something goes wrong.
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