What are viruses & whats the difference between a virus, a worm or a Trojan horse?
• Viruses: A virus is a malicious manmade program or piece of code that operates on your computer, in many cases, without you knowing it exists. A virus is designed to run automatically (often taking over part of another program, even in some cases taking over part of the startup process of your computer) and is also designed to automatically replicate (or reproduce) itself to multiple files on your computer or even on other computers attached to a network. Some viruses are simply designed to be a nuisance (displaying annoying messages or offensive graphics, then replicating themselves), but others can be very dangerous and can delete files, damage programs, or even prevent access to entire disk drives. • Worms: A worm is a program that is designed to spread from computer to computer very quickly, often by sending itself to addresses in your e-mail program or users in your Instant Messaging application. Most worms will run automatically and don’t rely on another program to start them.
