Computer Safety - Viruses

Virus Threats and Antivirus Software

Simply put, if you do not have antivirus software on your computer, you are playing with fire.  It isn't a question of if, but when your computer will be hit.   Viruses are small pieces of software that are only written for one purpose, and that is to cause damage.

Viruses come in many shapes and sizes and threat levels.  Some don't do much damage at all.  Others are so bad that they can completely wipe out your hard drive.  Some viruses can act immediately, others may wait for days or months and only be activated by a trigger mechanism like hitting a particular date and time.

All viruses have one thing in common, and this is why they call themselves viruses, they spread and replicate themselves from one machine to another, and do this without your help.  In most cases, they harvest names from your inbox or your contact list, and then send themselves to these people.  So essentially when you get a virus, your machine spreads it to everyone that you know.

Protecting yourself from viruses

Virus protection for the most part isn't all that hard.  It requires investing in antivirus software, installing it on your machine, and keeping up with the updates (or letting the software do it automatically).  In other words, if everyone did this, it would almost completely wipe out the risk, other than perhaps a few cases with new viruses.