The most of peoples make blunder when the topic of a computer virus arises is to refer to a worm or Trojan horse as a virus. While the words Trojan, worm and virus are often used interchangeably, they are not the same. Viruses, worms and Trojan Horses are all malicious programs that can cause damage to your computer, but there are differences among the three, and knowing those differences can help you to better protect your computer from their often damaging effects.
Computer virus
(1) Attaches itself to a program or file so it can spread from one computer to another, leaving infections as it travels. Much like human viruses
(2) Computer viruses can range in severity: Some viruses cause only mildly annoying effects while others can damage your hardware, software or files.
(3) Almost all viruses are attached to an executable file, which means the virus may exist on your computer but it cannot infect your computer unless you run or open the malicious program. It is important to note that a virus cannot be spread without a human action, (such as running an infected program) to keep it going.
(4) People continue the spread of a computer virus, mostly unknowingly, by sharing infecting files or sending e-mails with viruses as attachments in the e-mail.
Worm
(1) A worm is similar to a virus by its design, and is considered to be a sub-class of a virus. Worms spread from computer to computer, but unlike a virus, it has the capability to travel without any help from a person. A worm takes advantage of file or information transport features on your system, which allows it to travel unaided.
(2) The biggest danger with a worm is its capability to replicate itself on your system, so rather than your computer sending out a single worm, it could send out hundreds or thousands of copies of itself, creating a huge devastating effect. One example would be for a worm to send a copy of itself to everyone listed in your e-mail address book. Then, the worm replicates and sends itself out to everyone listed in each of the receiver's address book, and the manifest continues on down the line.
(3) Due to the copying nature of a worm and its capability to travel across networks the end result in most cases is that the worm consumes too much system memory (or network bandwidth), causing Web servers, network servers and individual computers to stop responding. In more recent worm attacks such as the much-talked-about Blaster Worm the worm has been designed to tunnel into your system and allow malicious users to control your computer remotely.
Trojan Horse
(1) Trojan Horse is full of as much trickery as the mythological Trojan Horse it was named after. The Trojan Horse, at first glance will appear to be useful software but will actually do damage once installed or run on your computer.
(2) Those on the receiving end of a Trojan Horse are usually tricked into opening them because they appear to be receiving legitimate software or files from a legitimate source. When a Trojan is activated on your computer, the results can vary. Some Trojans are designed to be more annoying than malicious (like changing your desktop, adding silly active desktop icons) or they can cause serious damage by deleting files and destroying information on your system.
(3) Trojans are also known to create a backdoor on your computer that gives malicious users access to your system, possibly allowing confidential or personal information to be compromised. Unlike viruses and worms, Trojans do not reproduce by infecting other files nor do they self-replicate.
Spyware-Adware
(1) Spyware and Adware collect information about you without appropriate notice and consent.
(2) Spyware can get installed on your computer in a number of ways. One way is via a virus. Another way is for it to be secretly downloaded and installed with other software you've chosen to install. You and I both know how easy it is to skip reading all the documentation on a free program and just click "OK." That's often how they get you.
Listed below are more articles related to the above article from the "Security" article category.
People interested in the above article "Difference between Virus-Worms-Trojan Horses and SpyWare" are also interested in the related articles listed below:
Internet security or safety has become one of the most important and necessary concern nowadays for every parent. Because of the increasing use of internet today more and more children and teenagers are getting attracted and addicted towards it. So it gets very necessary for every parent to monitor their children internet activities all the time they are using it.
Now days the computers have become the most important part of the life. Without a computer you cannot do anything which is related to business, home entertainment, management systems and more. When you use system majorly for everything, of course you do face simple problems. The basic problems would be common in all the computers and you need to maintain it in order to get it running smoothly. Let's discuss on few of the maintenance tasks.
Computers have become a part of life today. People are now using computers to perform their day to day work. It not only saves their time but gives perfection too. Various data storage devices are used in computer to store and retrieve data. If you are using external data storage devices and attaching them with the computer frequently, there are chances that any malicious software or virus can intrude into your computer during the exchange of the data.
We're all aware that the world is only becoming more digitally orientated, and with the advent of social media, internet-connected mobile phones and portable tablet devices, it's becoming increasingly difficult to stay safe in a digital world. While most of us like to think that in the real world, we wouldn't be taken in by a scam or a fraudster is the same true in the digital sphere? It's a scary world where one click can take you from an entirely innocent search term to a wholly inappropriate website.
Monitoring and controlling internet activities of kid's and teenagers have become necessary due to increasing risks on the internet. In this article, it has been listed all the actions that can be performed by parents with the help of parental control software to protect their child.
Computers have effectively changed our lifestyle but they are always prone of virus intrusion. As their importance is increasing a proper protection for them is also required. Virus can intrude into a computer through any data storage device which carries infected data and comes in contact with the system. If a computer is connected to a network, chances of virus intrusion become very high if it is not protected by effective antivirus software. The Internet has changed the whole method of communication and now the world seems as an area without boundaries. In this scenario chances of virus intrusion in a computer connected with the Internet have become very high.
When visiting a website, vulnerabilities in your browser can be exploited to install keylogging software on your computer without your knowledge. Keylogging software can be installed on your computer from not only small websites which hackers own and run themselves, but also from larger more trusted sites, on which hackers have managed to include their exploit scripts. Once it has been installed, it can be very difficult to detect keyloggers. â€è
