It is astonishing how many individuals; both casual Internet "surfers" and online marketers prefer to disregard computer internet security. Conceivably it is just due to unawareness as to how common and hazardous computer viruses are or that they are simply "too cheap" to invest in quality internet security products. Then again it could be a matter of their inexperienced confidence that "it will never happen to me". Whatever the justification, with some computer industry reports confirming nearly 5,000 "new" computer viruses being discovered each year, whether you are a laid-back Internet surfer or a serious online business person, you cannot afford not to take computer virus threats very seriously!
Just picture logging into your computer one sunny day to verify your bank account or PayPal account only to learn all your funds are missing! Your hard earned money, either from your traditional job or online business (perhaps both) have been swiped. Yes, there are viruses out there that are capable of gathering sensitive data (passwords, credit card data, etc.) from your computer devoid of your realization and transferring it back to the criminals that created the virus programs. Good-bye savings! So it is well worth your time to invest in the top internet security software that you can manage to pay for.
Therefore what is a computer virus anyhow? In easy terms, a computer virus is a code that has the ability to distribute all the way through your computer and/or network by attaching itself to your program files or host files. Once the computer virus has copied itself right through your computer system, depending on the type of virus, it begins to hinder with the standard operation of your computer and /or network in an assortment of ways which we will talk about in a later article.
Unluckily computer viruses come in lots of distinctive forms, so there is no one universal cure that will prevent and demolish all the numerous viruses out there. Some of the more widespread viruses are:A) Boot sector viruses that focus on infecting the boot sector of a hard drive as well as the "master boot record". Simply starting or "booting" your computer is sufficient to activate this nasty critter if your computer is infected.B) File infector viruses love to attack your application programs by attaching themselves to the code of the host file. This enables them to spread from one computer to another over a network once the host application is used by the computer user (you).C) Macro viruses are in fact tiny programs on their own which can infiltrate an application program and then begin to replace standard programming code to cause unexplained and potentially damaging behavior, which may result in data loss and more.
Other virus types that are becoming more frequent and that you must be knowledgeable of consist of:1. stealth viruses which have the ability to go into hiding from all but the finest internet security programs,2. time bomb viruses that are made specially to become operational on a specific date or time determined by their originator,3. polymorphic viruses have the built in ability to in fact modify their code to hoodwink basic anivirus scanning software until they are ready to launch an attack,4. multipartite viruses are a blend (or hybrid) of two or more viruses such as a boot sector virus and a file infector virus,5. logic bombs are created to launch an attack when a specified event, predetermined by their creator, happens. Until that time, they work like a time bomb virus, lying in wait.
One final piece of data just in case you still are unconvinced of the seriousness and threats to your computer internet security posed by computer viruses. Depending on your information resources, estimates of new computer viruses uncovered each month vary from as low as 100 upwards to over 500! Plainly it is no longer a question of "if I do acquire a computer virus infection", but rather, "when I develop a computer virus infection".
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