What does a computer virus do?
Historically, computer viruses were created as pranks, occasionally pushing the virus writer’s political or personal agenda on the victim. Later, viruses would actually destroy data, sometimes indiscriminately, on the infected computer. Most modern virus writers have realized that rather than destroying a computer’s data, it is more advantageous to take control of the infected computer to infect other computers, launch additional attacks from the infected computer, or harvest information from the data on the infected computer. This type of activity usually goes unnoticed by the victim until it is too late. Installing an antivirus program and keeping it up-to-date is critical to combat this type of virus infection.
