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All about Viruses Briefly, a virus is a program, or pieces of code, that "infect" one or more of the programs on your PC. Basically, your programs "get sick" and start performing in weird ways, which can sometimes lead to a system crash. Just like biological viruses, they like to replicate themselves and spread to other PCs, usually through your Address Book. Virus writers used to write viruses to simply destroy your personal data and cause your computer to play up or crash. However, they are now taking more of a commercial angle and prefer to infect your computer and take control of it remotely to send spam, plunder the information from your computer, and/or use it for scams. Viruses appear in all sorts of forms to trick you into loading them onto your computer. Some appear as legitimate-looking files, others are inside other files, and some are even embedded in pictures! You don't want a virus, so make sure you have an anti-virus tool installed. |