What is a Computer Virus – Signs and Types of Computer Virus

A computer virus is a program that infects the normal functioning of the computer and sometimes hangs the computer and the computer can also turn off due to the virus. It is important to note that a virus is not necessarily malicious. However, it may have side effects (as a result of the virus clashing with the operating system, user programs, and extensions.

Signs of Computer Viruses

There are different signs through which we can identify the virus on a computer

Speed of the system

Viruses can slow down the speed of the system. The processing speed of the system slows down as compared to normal functioning. It also affects the application opening speed.

Self-execution of the programs

Because of viruses, some programs run in the background without the user’s sight.

Crashing of the Device

In most cases, if the virus spreads in maximum files and programs, there are possibilities that the entire devices may crash and stop working.

Delete file automatically

Viruses delete your files automatically without your consultation. Sometimes important files are deleted because of the virus.

Security Setting

Viruses change the security setting of the system. As a result, security issues arise and the system hangs.

Types of computer viruses

Different types of viruses are given below:

Worms Droppers and Logic Bombs

A worm is an independent program that can easily spread copies of itself or parts of its copies to other computers, and these copies are themselves fully functional independent programs, which are capable either of spreading further and/or of communicating with the parent worm (to report back results of some computation).

Trojan Horses

A Trojan horse is a program that possesses various intentional undocumented features whose effects few users of the software would appreciate were these undocumented features to manifest themselves. Unlike a computer virus, which attaches itself to some other program using any of a number of methods, a Trojan horse is a self-contained program.

Dropper

The purpose of the dropper virus is to install some sort of malware into the targeted system. The code of the virus is present within the dropper such that it cannot be detected by the virus scanner.

File infectors

On a DOS-based system, file infectors will commonly attach themselves to.COM or. EXE files, although there are many other kinds of infectable objects.

Resident virus

The resident virus is the virus that stays in the memory of the computer and then infects the files depending on the programming of the virus. And then it crashes the files and programs.

Boot Sector Virus

The boot sector virus is the type of malware that infects the storage devices or boot partitions of the hard disk of the computer.

Overwrite virus

It is the malicious virus that infects the original code of the program. 

It makes the data useless by overwriting the data in the program. This is the virus that exploits Linux, and Macintosh.

Browser Hijacker

Browser Hijacker is a type of malware that modifies the browser without any permission from the user and suggests websites to the users that he does not want to visit. It redirects such websites to the user which are harmful.

Web Scripting Virus

This is the type of virus which have the capacity to burst the security of the web browser. When the web browser’s security is infected or then in return, it injects some malicious code into it to take over the web browser.

Related FAQ

How we can prevent our system from viruses?

To prevent the system from viruses we have to follow the following caution.

• Don’t use the questionnaire websites.
• Install the antivirus software and scan the system timely.
• Don’t use pirated software.
• Keep your system updated.

How do computer viruses spread in the system?

There are different ways through which computer viruses spread in the system.

• Computer viruses spread through e-mail attachments.
• It is also spread through a USB attachment.
• It is spread through internal download software.