What are viruses? What viruses are there? Problems viruses cause How to get rid of a virus Why do people create viruses? Technology and Society

A computer virus is a self-copying computer programme that spreads by inserting copies of itself into other computer programmes. Viruses can also travel to other computers and infect them.

There are two main types of viruses. They are “Time Bombs” and “Logic Bombs”. Another type of virus is a “good virus”.

A time bomb occurs during a particular date or time. Two common dates that time bombs are set off are on April 1st (April fools day), and Friday the 13th.

A logic bomb occurs when the user of the computer does something to activate the bomb, like opening a certain programme.

Some viruses are made to be “good viruses”. They are to improve programmes that they infect or to delete other viruses. These good viruses are very rare.

Viruses can do lots of things to effect your computer, including deleting files, making the system run slow, change the system time and date, increase file size or randomly change file or memory size. These are only some of the problems that viruses can cause.

To get rid of a virus, you need a virus protection programme. Different virus protection programmes are Norton Anti- Virus, AVG, Zone Alarm, Anti Vir and PC-Cillin. These programmes are all very useful for getting rid of viruses and detecting viruses before they infect your computer.

Virus writers have various reasons for creating viruses. They have been written as research projects, pranks, vandalism, to attack products of companies and to financially gain from identity theft. Virus writers like to think of their work as art.

People are afraid that their computer will get a virus, so they are purchasing more anti- virus programmes to prevent this. Viruses give computer technicians more jobs fixing computer systems that have been infected by a virus. Viruses are very inconvenient for people who rely on computers for jobs or school work.

Because we are so dependent on computers, virus writers realise that we hurry to get our computers fixed, so they create viruses knowing how we will react. As computer programmes get better, viruses must become more complex to infect these programmes.