What is a virus?

Malware, short for malicious software, is software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without the owner's informed consent. The expression is a general term used to mean a variety of forms of hostile, intrusive, or annoying software or programme code.

The term "computer virus" is sometimes used as a catch-all phrase to include all types of malware, including true viruses. Malware includes computer viruses, worms, trojan horses, most rootkits, spyware, dishonest adware, crimeware and other malicious and unwanted software.

The best-known types of malware, viruses and worms, are known for the manner in which they spread, rather than any other particular behaviour. The term computer virus is used for a programme which has infected some executable software and which causes that software, when run, to spread the virus to other executable software. Viruses may also contain a payload which performs other actions, often malicious. A worm, on the other hand, is a program which actively transmits itself over a network to infect other computers. It too may carry a payload.

These definitions lead to the observation that a virus requires user intervention to spread, whereas a worm spreads automatically. Using this distinction, infections transmitted by email or Microsoft Word documents, which rely on the recipient opening a file or email to infect the system, would be classified as viruses rather than worms.

How can you get rid of them and ensure the future security of your system?

• Do not open an attachment on an email, unless you know who and where it is from, and even then, make sure the file has first been scanned by an antivirus/anti-malware program
• Do not click on random pop-ups on the internet that offer something for nothing, the most common messages are you are the 10,000th visitor to a particular website or you have won a cash prize
• Be particularly wary if downloading illegal music/films from file sharing websites - these are quite often malware programmes in disguise and as a result infect your system with false pop-ups

The key point is to be vigilant, and if something looks too good to be true, it probably is!

 How can JCSD help?

There are many free programmes available on the internet to combat against malware and viruses, which do offer a good level of protection. However, we like to ensure any infection is completely removed and that an anti virus programme is put in place to limit the risk of any future attacks. In addition to this, we apply any updates to MS Windows to reduce the risk of any repeat attacks.

If you would like to find out more or to get a quotation to have your system checked and cleaned, please complete the contact form below. 

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