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How does a computer virus work





Ever wonder what takes place when those pesky viruses are on your computer? Well it’s information that you might find to be of use when it comes to how these little annoyances work.



A computer virus is a form of malicious software that piggybacks onto legitimate application code in order to spread and replicate itself. Viruses have been around for a very long time; the first virus was discovered on January 4th 1986, by two Pakistani brothers. Its name comes from the method by which it infects its targets. A biological virus like HIV or the flu cannot reproduce on its own; it needs to hijack a cell to do that work for it, wreaking havoc on the infected organism in the process. Equally, a computer virus isn't itself a standalone program. It's a code snippet that inserts itself into some other application. When that application runs, it executes the virus code, with results that range from the irritating to the disastrous.



Like other types of malware a virus is deployed by attackers to harm or take control of a computer. Its name comes from the method by which it infects its targets. A biological virus like HIV or the flu cannot reproduce on its own; it needs to hijack a cell to do that work for it, wreaking havoc on the infected organism in the process. Equally, a computer virus isn't itself a standalone program. It's a code snippet that inserts itself into some other application. When that application runs, it executes the virus code, with results that range from the irritating to the disastrous.

Viruses can come from excessive pop-ups, Slow performance or frequent crashes, A new homepage or other changes to your browser,Emails sent from your accounts without your knowledge, Disabled security software and getting locked out of your files or programs.


So imagine an application on your computer has been infected by a virus,How does the virus do its dirty work? Bleeping Computer provides a good high-level overview of how the process works. The general course goes something like this: the infected application executes (usually at the request of the user), and the virus code is loaded into the CPU memory before any of the legitimate code executes.At this point, the virus propagates itself by infecting other applications on the host computer, inserting its malicious code wherever it can.

Now that you know how computer viruses work, you can look even cooler explaining it to your friends.Thank you and please share with everyone.




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