by David Kramer

Created on: April 22, 2010

Like many computer terms, the concept of a computer virus is a personification of the human form of viruses.   Just as there are ways to minimize contraction of a virus and control over them in humans, there are methods to achieve the same in computers.  This article describes computer viruses, addresses some of the myths, and offers some solutions.

A virus in a human attaches to cells and mutates them causing harm to the body.  They can reside undetected for years, they can result in seemingly sudden onset of the flu or common cold symptoms.  In humans we can minimize contact with others to reduce the chance of catching a virus, practice good hygiene and, work at building up our immune systems that natural fight off and resist viruses.  Despite the best efforts, humans are still susceptible to attack.

Much of the same is true with computer viruses.   A virus is typically a program that attaches itself to other program and can remain dormant for years, possibly forever with the only damage done is taking up space, or it could do some sort of damage or prank right up front.  The delivery mechanism can happen in many ways.   A common way is through a Trojan horse, where like the story of the Trojans, a gift is given which looks to be friendly, but hidden inside is the threat.   The Trojans built a large wooden horse and hid soliders inside in order to penetrate the fortress walls of the city of Troy.  The people of Troy thought they were receiving a gift so they accepted the horse and brought it inside the city walls and ultimately the men inside came out of the horse battled the people of Troy without having to fight their way through their protective walls that guarded the city.

Trojan horses in the computer world could come in various forms from a computer game that seems fun and entertaining to any kind of application that seems necessary and useful.  The thing to remember is that whenever a program is ran on a computer, that program has full control over the computer as the user running it.  So whatever rights and privileges and levels of access one has, they grant that same level of rights and privileges and access to any program that is ran by that person.  The computer does not know the difference between a program and the person and it's up to the end user to make the decision of what is safe or not.

Websites sometimes have programs, and visiting certain websites involves running these

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