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Computer Virus

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In this assignment, I will be addressing a few topics about computer virus . I will explain the difficulty of creating a computer virus and its frequency and also explaining the differences between a virus and a worm, along with their threat level. According to Microsoft, computer viruses are small software programs that are designed to spread from one computer to another and to interfere with computer operation (Microsoft, 2013). Computer viruses are difficult to create because you have to know the proper coding and determine what you are trying to attack. Many computer programmers or hackers have coding set up online as a start up, but majority of them don’t function correctly. There is constantly many people trying to hack into computers on a daily. Some are fortunate to succeed and some are not.

A virus consists of self-propagating program codes that’s triggered by a specific time or event (Bidgoli, 2012). A virus attaches itself to a program or file enabling it to spread from one computer to another, leaving infections as it travels. Viruses can be transmitted through an email attachment or through a network. A computer virus severity varies. It can be mild like a prank, displaying images on a user’s screen or while others can damage your hardware, software or files. According to Cisco, all viruses are attached to an executable file, which means the virus may exist on a system but will not be able to active until a user runs or opens the malicious host file or program (Cisco, 2013). A worm travels from computer to computer in a network, but it doesn’t usually erase data. Unlike a virus, it is an independent program that can spread itself without having to be attached to a host program (Bidgoli, 2012). To spread, worms either exploit weakness on the target system or use some kind of social engineering to trick users into executing them. A worm enters a computer through the vulnerability in the system and that advantage of file-transport or information-transport features on the system allowing them to travel unaided (Cisco, 2013). A worm corrupts data.

Are non-Microsoft operating systems less prone to virus attack? I would say yes, because I have Windows and it’s always giving me issues versus when the Mac, I don’t have any problems. All operating systems runs into protection issues but its found that Linux and Mac operating systems are the less vulnerable to virus attack (Combofix, 2013).

In conclusion, computer viruses can cause serious harm to your computer programs and hardware. Never open email from senders that you do not recognize. Installing and updating an antivirus program is the best measure against viruses. There are continuous hackers constantly trying to hack in to computers to steal information. Some hackers just want to cause harm to computers by creating viruses therefore, try to save any information on a flash drive in case of data being lost due to an unknown virus.

References
Bidgoli, H. (2012). MIS2. Boston: Cengage Learning.
2013. What is a computer virus. Retrieved from http://www.microsoft.com/security/pc-security/virus-whatis.aspx

2013. What is the difference: viruses, worms, Trojan, and bots? Retrieved from http://www.cisco.com/web/about/security/intelligence/virus-worm-diffs.html

2013. Which operating system is safe from virus attack? Retrieved from http://www.combofix.org/which-operating-system-is-safe-from-virus-attack.php

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