Summary
In this article, you are going to learn what is computer viruse, history of computer virus, economic effects of computer virus, the various types of computer virus, advantages and disadvantages of computer virus.
What is a Computer Virus?
A computer virus is a program or piece of code that is loaded onto your computer without your knowledge and does things not expected of your computer. Viruses can also duplicate themselves. All computer viruses are made by man himself. A simple virus that can make a copy of itself over and over again is absolutely easy to produce. Even such a simple virus is dangerous because it will quickly use all available memory and bring the system to a halt or do even worse. An even more dangerous type of virus is one capable of transmitting itself across networks and bypassing security measures placed to prevent theft.
Viruses can increase their chances of spreading to other computers by infecting files on a network file system or a file system that is accessed by another computer. As soon as one personal computer is infected with a virus, the virus has access to any connected network and scans new computers for security holes. Malware does harm to your systems and can cause many problems for you in your daily life.
A computer virus is also a type of malicious software that is malware that, when executed, duplicates itself by customizing other computer programs and putting its own code. When this duplication succeeds, the affected areas are then said to be "infected" with a computer virus.
History of Computer Virus
The Creeper virus was first sensed on the ARPANET, the predecessor of the Internet, in the early 1970s. Creeper was an experimental self-duplicating program written by Bob Thomas at BBN Technologies in 1971. Creeper used the ARPANET to infect DEC PDP-10 computers running the TENEX operating system. Creeper gained access via the ARPANET and copied itself to the remote system where the message, "I'M THE CREEPER. CATCH ME IF YOU CAN!" was displayed. The Reaper program was created to delete Creeper.
In 1982, a program called "Elk Cloner" was the first personal computer virus to appear "in the wild"—that is, outside the computer or computer lab where it was created. Written in 1981 by Richard Skrenta, a ninth grader at single Mount Lebanon High School near Pittsburgh, it attached itself to the Apple DOS 3.3 operating system and spread via floppy disk. On its 50th use the Elk Cloner virus would be activated, infecting the personal computer and displaying a short poem beginning "Elk Cloner: The program with a personality."
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Types of Computer Viruses
i. Boot Sector Virus
ii. Direct Action Virus
iii. Resident Virus
iv. Multipartite Virus
v. Polymorphic Virus
vi. Overwrite Virus
vii. Spacefiller Virus
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different kind of computer virus and their effects
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Economic Effects of Computer Viruses
Computer viruses currently cause billions of dollars worth of economic damage each year, due to causing system failure, wastage of computer resources, corruption of data, increased maintenance costs e.tc. Some viruses are programmed to damage the computer by damaging programs, deleting files, or formatting the hard disk. Others are not designed to do any damage, but simply duplicate themselves and spread to other computers.
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Disadvantages of Computer Viruses
The following are some of the disadvantages of computer virus:
- It may lead to crashing of computer system
- It may cause the system to run very slow as a result of the deletion of vital files required by the system.
- Viruses are designed to target valuable and sensitive information of the victims
- It may reduce the performance of the computer hardware
- It may temper with the initial settings of the operation system
- Virus may alter the primary objective of applications installed in the computer system
Features of Computer Viruses
1. They are executable programs
2. It remains dormant until a specific action is met
3. It can easily duplicate itself
4. It can be copied from one system to another
5. It causes harm to computer files, programs
6. Are intended for a particular purpose
7. They remain hidden