It’s hard to believe that anyone would even ask what is a virus, considering the immense impact it has had on business operations across the globe. For those who are still asking “What are viruses and trojans?” though, the simplest answer would be a program which piggybacks on other programs to corrupt an operating system and cause other damages. Just like the biological virus, a computer virus can spread easily, and they infiltrate your computer’s system when you have no protection against them. The computer virus is also like its biological counterpart in that it sneaks into your computers mercilessly without getting noticed until it has already caused significant damage. Computer viruses also spread easily, and the growing popularity of internet use has made the problem worse.

People who ask, “What is a virus,” are also the most vulnerable victims and carriers of this infection. Most likely, they have been surfing the internet without virus shield installed on their computers.  Virus infections can be absorbed into your system when you open suspicious emails, click on links without knowing where exactly it’s leading to, browsing questionable online sites, and downloading executable files and even images. A computer which has been infected with a virus can also spread the infection by transferring files to other computers using flash disks and other devices with no virus shields.

Now that you know what is a virus, the next thing that you should do is to look for ways to fight it. After installing an anti-virus program, run virus scans regularly to weed out these infections from your files. Once they’ve been identified and located by your software, quarantine them and delete them before they infect your other files. During your first scan, you might lose some data in your computer especially if the virus has been sitting in your system for quite a while. This can be painful, especially if the files are important, but it’s certainly better than having your entire hard disk wiped out, or worse, your operating system crashing. You also have to keep your anti-virus software updated because new virus infections are created every day. Unless your real time shields are up-to-date, the software won’t be able to protect your computer efficiently.

Some people may ask you what is a virus when they see the software you’ve installed in your computer. You can also add that you can get viral infections through social networking websites. These websites have messengers that allow people who are connected to you to communicate with you. Before you open or click on links sent to you by a contact, look for a description of the website first. If the link doesn’t come with a description, don’t click on it and ask your contact if s/he did send the message. There’s a high possibility that this is just a SPAM message, which is another way for virus infections to spread. When your computer is unprotected, virus infections can infiltrate your messengers and send messages to your contacts without your knowledge.

Probably the most dangerous type of virus infection is the one that steals your credit card information or drains out your banking account. If you transact online with an unprotected computer or open your bank account’s page without an anti-virus software program installed on your system, you run these risks.