Essay, Research Paper: Computer Virus

Computer Virus
Computer viruses are well known for their wrong doings. They are thought of as harmful
programs that can affect your computer greatly. That is partly true except that they can be
removed very quickly and easily. There is an interesting history of how viruses got there name
and how the first one appeared in public. There are a couple of different kinds of viruses but
millions of them are created. All viruses are intended for malicious acts but there is a solution for
that, antivirus software, which detects and removes viruses, hopefully.
In 1949, the first encounter of a virus had been made. A mathematician named John von
Neumann said that it is theoretically possible for a computer program or application to replicate
itself. Later in 1983, a student thought of the name virus to describe this self replicating program
when it was tested on a game earlier. A program called EGABTR was the first Trojan horse that
appeared in the public and was disguised as a game called Nuke La. This posed a serious threat to
the public because viruses could be thought of as a harmless program or game but instead it is a
program that does harmful executions in the computer.
There are six different kinds of viruses, parasitic, bootstrap sector, multi partite,
companion, link, and data file. Parasitic viruses infect executable files that reside in the computer.
The bootstrap viruses are located in the boot sector of the computer and modify the contents of
the hard drives and disks. Multi partite viruses infect both files and boot sectors on the computer.
A companion virus creates a program that tricks the computer into running it. The computer first
runs the virus when the program is opened and does its damage in that way. A link viruses
modify the way the computer runs a program. It tricks that computer into running the virus
before the program. Data file viruses are written in macro languages and when a legitimate
program is run, so is the virus.
If you are ever encountered with a virus, you would have to follow a couple of easy steps
to remove it as quickly as possible. First you might want to find the source, if it is not found,
then the virus might spread. If you have antivirus protection software on your computer, then for
the most part, all you would have to do is run it and it will most likely remove the virus from your
computer and any others. Some viruses are not detectable by antivirus software but will be in the
future.
In conclusion, viruses can be very dangerous, but most of them can be removed with
proper software. New viruses are created world wide and the people that make them, won't stop
for anything, unless they are caught.