Viruses – both the real ones and the computer-based ones – are fascinating little critters. They are practically useless outside of a living host (in the case of the biological virus) or a computer system (in the case of a computer virus). But, once they infiltrate the host body or system, then they start their real work. Computer viruses can only enter a computer system via vulnerabilities. If those vulnerabilities are removed, the virus will be helpless and incapable of doing harm. One way to prevent computer viruses from infiltrating your computer is to install antivirus firewall software on your machine.
To be able to avert virus infections more effectively, it is important that you are familiar with how they operate.
Computer viruses are essentially just software code or software programs created by human beings. Once a computer virus infiltrates a system, it rides on other files on the host system. For instance, the virus can insert itself into an executable file on the computer system, and each time that executable file is run or invoked, the virus code also executes. Computer viruses replicate and spread themselves in this manner.
Also, computer viruses often destroy computer files. By injecting virus code into files and documents on your computer, the virus can actually render those files unusable. So, if the files are those that your computer needs for proper functioning, a virus infection can effectively corrupt your system so that it won’t boot up anymore.
Some viruses are as small as one kilobyte, others can take up several kilobytes, even megabytes. Typically, though, most viruses are small in size. Their small sizes make them easy to spread around.
Hundreds of computer viruses are being spread or written every day. But, most of them can be easily spotted by a good antivirus firewall software program. Some viruses that are still unidentified or still “in the wild,” may wreak havoc for some time, until the antivirus software companies begin noticing them and their behavior. Once those “wild” viruses are contained, remedies and software patches are then sent out by the antivirus companies so that your system can protect itself from being infected by the newcomer virus.
At the end of the day, what all these boil down to is that you ought to protect yourself against infection from computer viruses. You can do that by installing antivirus firewall software on your computer.