By George Cherere
Computer viruses have been on the rise and they have been giving people using the internet a very hard time and especially at the present times. The biggest danger with the viruses is that they are easily transmitted across computers and this is possible through very many avenues just as the people creating them have intended.
Their intentions are also varied chiefly stealing personal data and secondly gaining control of networks and computers and lastly another of their intentions will be the malicious damage to information and infrastructure. The viruses are able to spread extremely fast and this is perhaps the biggest danger since they will be found in email attachments, as funny images, as even audio and video files and lots of other material which can be found online and downloaded for use on a personal computer.
Every computer owner and user should be wary of being a recipient of viruses. The fear of a virus attack is always very big and this arises also from the fear of the unexpected. Not everyone will really fear the viruses and some people especially in the cyber security niche will take their time to study various different computer viruses to identify how they have been programmed and the kind of damage they have been programmed to cause and lastly how they are able to spread.
Having known these important pieces of information, an individual will have the necessary information to keep themselves protected and maintain cyber security. The information here is about knowing about the risk and how to deal with it far from knowing the consequences which when they finally happen are devastating. A look at some of the viruses frown at present will unearth different types which are the browser-hijackers which are usually aimed at raising advertising revenue by criminals via the directing of the browser to different websites and to voluntary download.
To mention just a few types of viruses known today, we will find the boot sector viruses, the web scripting viruses, the macro viruses, the file infector viruses, the resident viruses and the polymorphic viruses. These are just but a few of the viruses and are not an exhaustive list of the viruses known to man today. Aside from the viruses which are a big security threat, there are the worms, spyware, malware, rogue security software and the Trojans. These are threats which are equally devastating just like the viruses but are not as technically similar to the viruses.
The viruses have the potential to cause irreparable damage on the computer or the network and this has to do with the kind of problems that they are capable of causing. Of utmost importance is to have basic knowledge about the security threats and to know what measures to take to always be on the safe side. It is important that an individual knows some of the symptoms of the attacks by viruses. These will help prevent further damage being realized on the computer or on a network.
The most obvious indications of the infection by viruses include the hard drive of the computer constantly running out of space. Computer programs will usually take quite a long time to load which is not normally the case. The programs will also be exhibiting inconsistent behavior which cannot be explained. The appearance and the disappearance of files in the computer is also a classic example of viruses having infected the computer. Other symptoms will be the display of strange graphics on the computer monitor, conventional memory reducing by a big margin among other changes which cannot be explained.
The most important steps to take so that an individual is able to protect himself from the Trojans and the computer viruses especially when online, begins with caution. Beware of downloads and the exchanging of files and documents. Open attachments only in the event that the author and the origin of the files are known. It certainly helps to side step any form of trouble. Antivirus software is another way to keep your PC protected from virus attacks.
The antivirus software should always be updated to surely prevent any attacks. The process has been simplified and this has been so through automated updates being enabled with the antivirus software available today. Configure browsers to make sure that they do not launch programs automatically like the MS Word especially with the continued risk of macro viruses. Lastly, do a back up of the system which allows that an infected file will be replaced with a non infected file.
