Computer viruses are harmful programs that can cause a lot of damage to your computer.
It has caused billions of dollars of damage to the computers over the past two decades.
You can stop them before they stop you and it is not that difficult for you to stop them.
One of the ways is simply get an anti virus software and install it to your computer.
Nowadays, there are better anti virus software available in the market.
The software will do all the regular tasks automatically and seldom require you to do something special.
It is important to protect the important information in your computer.
Actually internet is not a save place, in fact it can be quite hostile.
The number of people using the same computer is also an important factor because the more people using the computer, the risk of being infected is higher.
Just like a group of strangers sharing a germ-infested spoon.
If your computer is always connected to the internet, then your computer is most likely to be targeted by Internet worms.
Some hackers like to scan and find those computers that are always connected to the internet.
Installing a software firewall or a hardware firewall has better protection as compared to those who have neither.
Software firewall is like an anti virus program that runs invisibly on your computer.
They watch all the communication coming and leaving your computer.
A hardware firewall is an electronic appliance.
It is installed on a network but the function is similar to the software firewall.
Wireless "hot spot" is also being targeted by hackers.
Some of the high-risk activities include downloading and file sharing, instant messaging, add-on programs, sharing your email address with too many people and organization.
Some virus symptoms can be observed.
There are a lot of ways that a computer can start to act strangely for no reason.
Some of the symptoms are slowing down in your computer, your hard-drive or networking-activity light flicker for no reason, computer always crash, computer will not boot, computer behave strangely and too many pop-up windows.
There are some tools and procedures that can accurately find out whether your computer has virus.
Firstly, check whether your computer has anti virus software.
If your computer has the software, check whether it is up to date.
If the software is up to date, scan your computer for viruses.
If your virus-scanning tool finds a virus on your computer, remove it.
Do remember to keep good habit such as keeping your software up to date, scan for viruses periodically, install security patches, working on good computer hygiene, block malicious network traffic with firewall and blocking spy ware.
The bad guys have come up with some other forms of malice such as worms, Trojan horses, scams, hostile websites, old scams and hoaxes.
Up to now, there are 3 types of viruses that exist.
One of it is file that contain viruses that will attach themselves to your program files, another one is boot-sector viruses that install themselves in a hard drive and the last one is macro viruses that burrow into Microsoft Word and Excel documents.