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• E-mail Virus: E-mail virus is a type of computer virus that transmit from one computer to other through e-mail
messages.
Some of the viruses are designed to get activated at a certain date and time. No matter how advanced an anti-virus
software program you have installed in your computer the new malicious code will still find its way through your
computer defence system. They gain access to your computer through:
Infected files
• Infected pen drives, CD/DVD-ROMs
• Through infected file attachment of emails
• Insecure websites
• Online games
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.
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.
ICT Skills-II 79

