Viruses
The dangers found on the Internet are not
limited to the online consumers who use their credit cards
to make purchases over the Internet. People who use computers
other than their own to write papers and people who check
email are at risk for contracting computer viruses. A computer
virus is a type of software which is usually designed to
duplicate itself and attach its replicas into other programs
or documents. This is quite similar to the way that biological
virus multiplies. 4
A virus is capable of many things. It can do make a computer
perform in a way it shouldn’t, for example, giving
the user odd, sometimes incomprehensible, messages. In the
more extreme cases, a virus can go so far as to delete all
the information saved on a user’s hard
drive.5
Viruses can be very dangerous to a user’s computer.
Ones such as the Klez.H virus can cause private information
or security information to be sent to many
others.6
CNN.com wrote that, as
of May 27, 2002, this virus is said to be in one out of
every 300 emails that are sent.7
To see a list of the most noteworthy and the most recent
virus threats go to PromiseMark’s
website.8
It provides a detailed description of how each virus infects
a user’s computer, an explanation of how to prevent
the virus from accessing each computer, and a suggestion
on how to get destroy it.
