Before we can comprehend how a computer virus works, it is important to realise what a virus does when it attacks the human body. A small organism, a virus is only able to reproduce itself within another living cell or body. Body cells can be damaged as a result of a viral infection and an individual will become ill as consequence.

Virus can be translated from Latin as ‘toxin’, it is like a toxic substance, able to reproduce in the human cells and cause illnesses such as influenza and the chickenpox. What do human viruses and computer viruses have in common? Usually the computer virus is hidden within a program, file or document which means it can be anywhere on your pc.

There are some clever individuals who have nothing worthwhile to do with their time that create and spread these computer viruses. Creating trouble and damage for every pc user is the sole purpose of this activity. Just as influenza can spread from one person to another, contamination of other computers, files and documents can occur as a consequence of a virus entering a computer. The computer can be prevented from working correctly by a computer virus. It can spread itself through the Internet and through local computer networks, as well as through removable storage devices such as memory sticks and floppy disks. Because it is hidden, it is hard to detect and it can be spread to other computers, unknowingly, by the computer user.

A computer virus works similarly to viruses (like the flu) that make a person sick. What each type of ‘digital virus’ will do to your computer depends on what it has been programmed to do, it can be very harmful, while others are created to simply annoy and will literally make your computer ’sick’. A wide variety of names have been made up, in order to describe different types of computer viruses, some examples are as follows : It will be easier to protect your computer against viruses, once you have an understanding of the workings of computer viruses.