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Types of Computer Viruses: A Simple and Easy Article on Malicious Programs.

Updated on August 27, 2012

Different Types of Computer Viruses

My father’s friend was worried. When I asked he let me know that his daughter (an exciting chick) was ill.

“I think”, he told me; “It is because of Computers.”

“What?”

“You know there are many Viruses inside a computer. I think my girl is infected by such a worm.”

I know many people like him, who have not a least idea about a Computer Virus. For the laymen I am going to give a simple idea about different types of Computer Viruses.

This is not a technical article and so I have the freedom to go outside the definition of pure viruses and include different types of malicious programs in our list. To be precise all of them are not called virus.

Trojan Horse
Trojan Horse

Trojan Horse: You know what was the actual Greek Trojan Horse, enemy in disguise. It is the same thing. A Trojan horse is a program that looks like a useful one. A Trojan horse is a hacker’s tool which gives him remote access to the infected computer. Thus he can steal or copy important data. Slavebot is a type of Trojan horse which can use the infected computer’s browser as proxy to surf the internet. In this way the hacker will do what he pleases and the owner of the infected pc will be blamed. There was such a case in India, 2/3 b years ago. An innocent man’s pc was hacked to send an email to Police claiming the responsibility of a terrorist attack. The man was arrested and harassed by the police. Later, it was proved by the specialists that his PC was hacked. So, be careful you guys.

Remember a Trojan horse cannot automatically infect your pc, you need have to install it. So, be careful about installing anything from unknown sources.

Adware: It is not a virus and generally not that harmful. Technically, it can not be included in any types of Computer Viruses but still, it is a virus like thing.It shows you unwanted ads to give the developer some money. It steals your bandwidth and disturbs your browsing. Many freeware have some adware included. Sometimes, an adware can also be dangerous for your security by spying on your activity.

Like a Trojan horse an adware is also generally cannot harm you if you do not install doubtful applications.

File Virus: A file virus infects an executable file. When the exe is called the virus copies himself and spreads. This is a destructive type of code which would soon make the victim pc unusable. A File Virus attack often leaves a destructive mark on your file system even after being removed.

This type of virus may come from internet or a affected pen drive or DVD.

Macro Virus: A Macro is a set of special instructions coded inside a document to perform different tasks. A document editor like MS Office or OpenOffice uses macro. A macro virus leaves inside a document’s macro. It gives him nice cover from the antivirus and firewall. Moreover, a macro virus can attack multiple platforms because a macro is supported in every operating systems.

Polymorphic Virus: As the name implies this virus can transform. It constantly changes itself in each and every copy. In this way it tries to befool the antivirus, just like an original human virus. A good antivirus and regular update of Virus definitions are necessary to kill it.

Memory Virus:It loads itself in the RAM and thus slows it down. It spends your PC’s resources.

Boot Virus: A boot virus leaves inside the boot sector of the hard disk, i.e. inside the section which controls the disk operation and its file management system.

Bot: A Bot is an automatic program which can do many preprogrammed things. It can automatically send emails or delete a file from your pc.

Key logger : A Key logger is also included in my list of various type of viruses because it is also a virus like thing. It copies the key presses when you type a password. It then send the username and password to the hacker. Thus the hacker will still your money with pleasure.

So, these are some times of computer virus and worms. You may add some more, waiting for your valuable comments about the types of Computer Viruses

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