Computer Viruses Why Do They Infect?

By: Jonathan Brazil

There are many definitions of a virus but put simply a virus is just a set of malicious instructions telling a computer to do something nasty. This behaviour can be trivial, resulting in the unwanted deletion of personal files. Yes, I did say trivial, when you consider the comparable catastrophe of your personal files being sent to recipients via email and your PC rendered useless to stop you discovering the misdemeanour. Personal files should be backed up anyway to a separate medium such as floppy, Zip or CD; it does not take a virus to destroy your personal data!

There are several reasons for the rapid spread of viruses in recent times. Popular operating systems that have captured a large market share have done so because of sophisticated features allowing system tasks to be automated via a script of instructions. This gives the system a nicer feel and appears more powerful to the experienced user but is also the Achilles heel of the system. If the operating system knows how to process these instructions there is nothing stopping somebody from writing a script of instructions to perform some less graceful activity.

Viruses spread in a number of ways; e-mail viruses spread by sending a copy of themselves to every e-mail address in your contacts directory thus prolonging the lifecycle of the virus by potentially infecting more users. However, the

biggest cause of virus dispersion is lack of vigilance on the users behalf. People open files that are e-mailed from people they don't know; these files could do anything. You might receive an e-mail virus from someone you know but despite the impersonal facade of e-mail, people still add personal touches. If the e-mail has no greeting, no meaningful content or an attachment name that makes no sense then don't open it. If it follows the aforementioned pattern and you weren't expecting it then it probably wasn't for you and you don't want to see what it can do. Vigilance is the only sure way to protect your system, don't be tempeted by clicking into the unknown.

On an interesting note, you should be aware that many emails warning of viruses are in fact hoaxes. They waste time, energy and computing resources by spreading rumours. One of the first of these hoaxes was the notorious "Good Times" hoax, started in December 1994 and still going around in various forms, saying not to read any email with "Good Times" as the subject. As a good rule of thumb, check an authoritative website to see if you are dealing with a hoax, before mailing virus warnings to all you friends and colleagues.

Viruses have plagued mankind since the dawn of time and it seems only fitting that, as we complete our transition into the computer era, viruses should remain the scourge of the general public. The common cold is no longer the only infectious thing we have to worry about.

There are many virus protection programs. Every computer should really have one installed and have the list of viruses regularly updated (this can be done automatically over the Internet for most programs).