Virus Prevention
There are a number of things you can do to reduce your chance of getting infected with a computer virus. As a general rule, do NOT open any e-mail messages from people you don't know. If you do know the sender, do not open any attachment unless there is an associated message that gives you confidence that it's something that makes sense for you to be receiving.
Virus Removal Software and Information
Viruses come in many forms and with many different problems attached to each kind. Some viruses are designed to mess up your entire computer and destroy all data; others are made just to show you unwanted advertisements every once in awhile. Either way, they shouldn't be on your computer and can be removed by you manually or by virus removal software. First though, let's discuss the most common types of computer viruses and what they can do to you or your computer.
The most known and damaging virus type that exists right now is the worm virus. This type of virus can duplicate itself and it will use the email addresses from your address book, and send itself to those people. This means your friends and family computers could even become infected with this virus.
The next most dangerous type of virus is the Trojan virus, which is a sneaky one, hence the name. Trojan viruses sneak in by disguising itself as a program that provides a legitimate function. But really it is a virus that will damage your computer or steal personal information like passwords. There is also the backdoor Trojan virus, which if your computer was infected with it, someone could take control of your computer through your network or the internet.
Another common virus is just a plain old fashioned file virus. File viruses can attach to real software, so that whenever you use the software, it will load into your memory and infect other files that are associated with that program. That means that the most important documents and data could be destroyed by one simple click!
The next type of viruses I will discuss is the most common on all computers today, and that is Adware and Spyware.
Adware is basically just advertisements that are saved on your computer, and show themselves sometimes in a random pop-up or when you type in a web address that is incorrect.
Spyware is actually the worst of the two because spyware can log your every keystroke, record every website you go to, and report your statistics back to an individual or company.
Those are really the most common types of viruses that exist and are on the internet today. If you really want to protect yourself against viruses you need to get virus protection software.
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