Computer Virus, Worm, Trojan Horse

Virus, Worm, Trojan Horse?

	A virus is a manmade program or piece of code that causes something to happen inside your computer. That something is most definitely not expected and usually is not good. Viruses are often disguised games or images with clever marketing titles like that fake email from Microsoft. What would you do if an email that looked like the one on the left arrived in your mailbox? It appears to be an official email from Microsoft, doesn't it? A lot of people assumed it was truly legitimate. They tried to install it.
	The clever person who perpetrated this illegal action really made it look real. The addition of this question made it look more real.
	Millions of people were victimized by this virus-like worm.
	This was (is) the W32/Swen@MM, I-Worm.Swen (AVP), W32/Gibe.e@MM, Win32.HLLM.Gibe.2 (DialogueScience), a Medium Risk mass-mailing worm for home users.

This particular worm moved through the Internet, and it may have been your fault. Well, not really -- but a lot of people thought you were the reason. The worm read your email addresses and mailed itself to everyone in your list. Once it found its way into state government and corporate computers, it went wild.

Millions of addresses were harvested, and millions of people received the above email.

The difference between a computer virus and a worm is this: the virus does something bad to your computer. The worm lives inside your computer performing functions and distributing itself through your email. It can even transform itself into a different email message and send itself a second time, a third time, and on and on.

A trojan horse is another malicious program. It usually does not replicate itself and mail itself. It was placed inside your computer for a purpose. "No close" is a popular one that does not allow you to leave the malicious website that gave it to you. The only way to get out of the site is to close your browser.

Like its name implies, a trojan horse will slip secretly inside your computer and wait around until its triggered to perform.

You also need to understand that there are thousands upon thousands of viruses, worms and trojan horses circulating throughout the Internet. As I write this, 32 new ones have been discovered in the past two weeks with four worms, one trojan and one virus being discovered this week, and two of those were discovered yesterday.

My apologies to the Capitol One commercials. What's in your PC? I'm talking about virus protection. With all that's going on in the world you cannot afford to protect your computer from viruses "the old-fashioned way."

Real time, online virus protection offers the best protection available. It's relatively inexpensive and is automatically updated to meet new threats as they arise. I've used online protection for a couple of years with total success.

It's so important I'm adding a banner below this article that you can click for more information or to purchase the product.

Computer Tips from Online Little Rock

Virus, Worm, Trojan Horse?