We’ve always heard of viruses being the products of extremely technologically savvy kids who just had too much time on their hands. However, it’s no denying the catastrophic damage that these viruses bring. Back in March of 1999, the Melissa virus forced businesses, including Microsoft, to shut down their e-mail systems up until the virus could be contained. And then in 2000, the ILOVEYOU virus initiated a similar reaction from the public when it was launched. In 2004, the Mydoom worm was able to infection almost 250,000 computers in just one day. And in 2007, another virus named the Storm stalled the operation of almost 50 million computers.

Although all viruses cause the same kind of annoying to debilitating damage, but there are actually different types of viruses which could infect your computer:

E-mail Virus

Because e-mail is the primary method that individuals can communicate with each other using the Internet, it’s only normal that people with not-so-noble intentions would exploit this medium. The very famous e-mail virus, Melissa virus, started off as a virus which was created in the guise of a Microsoft Word document. The document is sent through e-mail attachments and when it is opened, the virus is triggered. The virus would then induce the multiplication of 50 copies of the virus which made it extremely fast-spreading. You can understand from this why Microsoft had to shut down its e-mail systems.

Worms

This infectious computer program will replicate itself from one computer to another. Whenever a worm is in the process of replicating itself, it makes use of the computer’s processing time and network bandwidth. Back in 2001, the Code Red worm clogged up the Internet so effectively that the operations went on an abrupt halt. Worms spread basically through networks, moving from one computer to another. The Code Red worm was able to do three things: replicate non-stop for the first 20 days of each month that the worm is installed, instruct infected servers to change web pages stored to a page that had the phrase “Hacked by Chinese”, and launch an attack to the White House website.

Tips for Preventing a Virus Attack

Given how viruses generally work, the most important tip for preventing an infection is to be very vigilant of the things that you download and allow to run on your computer. Never double click on files which are executable and make it a point to screen anything you download for viruses even those which are sent to you through e-mail.

The writer, Keith Daniels, loves to blog about websites, servers and computer viruses. He shares great insights about Macquarie Telecom (MAQ)