How viruses damage our PC
and how do they affect it

How viruses damage our PC and how do they affect it:
We have all asked ourselves if we are really immune before the attack of a virus or if our antivirus software can really protect us a hundred percent from a virus, the answer is no, nowadays this is impossible, due to the fact that every day there are new and more complex viruses been developed, also because more security failures in the operative systems are shown, the only chance we have got is to reduce the risk as much as we can.

In order to reduce this risk, we need to know the viruses than can affect our PCs and how they operate, that way, we will be able of arranging the settings and antivirus of our computers correctly.

But if the possibility of having a virus damaging our PC becomes a reality, the effects can vary depending on the virus we are putting up to and on the attack.

Some viruses just show a recurrent message such as spam, others modify tools in Windows, for example: the wallpaper, other ones act in a not so obvious way, slowing down our PCs or sending private information, for example: our mail’s password; but among the most hazard viruses are the ones that affect the integrity of our hard drives or the plate itself.

To be able of protecting ourselves against this, we need to know our enemy, the virus. A virus is a program that has as an objective to change the regular functions of our PCs without the acknowledgement or permission of the user; they can perform this due to the fact that they reproduce themselves.

Worms, they are not considered as real viruses, because they do not depend on a software to spread themselves, what they do most of the times is spread by mail and register to run whenever the system is started, occupying space in the hard drive and slowing down the PC.

There are other viruses, such as Troyans, which often are more damaging; this is because there are not many ways of destroying them.

They act as Trojan horses; they help the attacker to get inside the infected system, pretending to be amusing content, such as wallpapers, games, music, advertising, etc. Sometimes they download another virus to make the situation ever worse.

Jokes are another type of nuisance, even though they are not considered as viruses; they are programs with different functions, but all of them have fun purposes, never destruction, but they still can be pretty annoying.

Hoaxes or fake viruses: are messages with false information; usually are spread through e-mail, most of the times these mails are spam like, meaning some sort of advertising that we have not requested and they often come in great amounts to our inbox.

After getting to know the most frequent viruses and understanding the way they operate, I would recommend following the next steps to reduce the infection risk:
-Acquire a good antivirus software, among the most recommended ones you might find: Norton, Kaspersky and Panda.

-Avoid introducing to your PC removable storage devices that you think could be infected with some sort of virus. This can be USB, CD-ROM, memory cards, etc.

-Do not install pirate software.

-Avoid downloading softwares from Internet websites you do not know or trust.

-Do not open messages or files from dubious sources or unknown e-mails.