Page 81 - AI Ver 1.0 Class 10
P. 81
You will come to know about the virus that infected your computer through the following common symptoms:
• Computer runs very slow as it loses its processing speed.
• There will be a change in the system file size.
• An unusual increase in number of files.
• Computer restarts on its own in between.
• Disk drives or disks become inaccessible.
• An application or applications are not working correctly.
• The computer locks up frequently or stops responding.
• Dialogue boxes and menus sometimes appear to be distorted.
• An anti-virus program will either be disabled or does not run properly.
A virus can:
• damage or delete your system files, application program files or data files.
• may reformatting your computer’s hard drive.
• slow down the performance of your computer.
• computer programs and applications may behave unexpectedly.
• steal some important and confidential information like your name, credit card details, and other sensitive
information kept on your computer and had over to unauthorised person.
There are few important things which a computer virus cannot do. They are:
• It cannot infect files on CD-ROM as they are write-protected.
• It cannot infect computer hardware such as monitors, keyboard, mouse, printer etc.
You can protect your computer from virus by following the given precautions:
• Install and use anti-virus software.
• Keep anti-virus software updated so that it can scan and remove new viruses.
• Scan all the files that you download from the Internet.
• Do not open e-mails from an unknown person/sender.
• Don’t allow any untrustworthy person to use your system.
• Never use unknown pen drive/CD on your computer.
• Never click on the unknown windows that pop-up when you are surfing the Internet.
Brainy Fact
The Creeper virus is the first computer virus designed by Bob Thomas in 1971 as he conducted an experiment
to develop a self-replicated program.
Scanning and Cleaning Virus
Scanning and cleaning a virus prevents any viruses from entering and will also clean any viruses that may have
entered your computer system unknowingly. Install Anti-virus or anti malware software to keep your system safe.
Anti-virus software is a program designed to prevent,detect and remove malicious programs from the computer.
After you install the anti-virus software runs automatically in the background to provide real-time protection
against virus attacks. You should also run full system scans periodically. Some examples of anti-virus software are
McAfee Virus Scan, Norton Anti-Virus, Microsoft Security essentials, Quick Heal etc.
Windows Defender is an antivirus software that's included in the Windows operating system that protects your device
ICT Skills-II 79

