It seems every day I hear a new news story about a computer virus, what are they and do I really need to care?
Computer Viruses have been around for 20 years. What you hear about these days aren’t viruses in the purest sense of the word. The little nasties that are getting all the press these days are worms and Trojan horses. Viruses are programs that attach themselves to other programs on your computer. When you execute the infected program, the virus will carry out its malicious task. Most viruses are pranks set to annoy users such as with a funny message on your screen; however some viruses can destroy data, and erase entire hard drives. Worms are a bit different and they are the stars of the media these days. A worm is a program that duplicates itself, and instead of spreading from file to file, it spreads from computer to computer. Worms devour network resources, by infecting entire networks in minutes. Most worms are spread through people opening email attachments. Once opened the worm will copy the infected computers address book, and start sending itself to all of your friends, family a
