What is a Virus?
A virus is a program or code that causes harm or inconvenience to a computer. Viruses are usually made to look like games or other desireables.
What is a Worm?
Worms are viruses that multiply themselves. They often send themselves to other computers through emails to cause even more trouble.
What is a Trojan Horse?
A Trojan horse does not multiply to create more copies of itself. They sit in wait until they are ready to strike depending upon what their programming tells them to do.
Virus Types
Boot Sector: A Boot Sector Virus infects the System area of a floppy or hard drive. They are activated when a user boot from an infected disk. More Info.
File Infector Viruses: Most of these viruses reside in the memory of a computer and infect programs' .exe and .com files. More Info
Master Boot Record Viruses: Similar to a Boot Sector viruses, these viruses infect the Master Boot Record and prevent your system from booting. More Info
Multi-partite viruses: Infect both the Boot record and program files.More Info More Info,
Macro viruses: Macro Viruses are prevalent in corporate environments where office suites are used. They use a program's code to infect data files. More Info
Other Malicious Codes
Trojan Horses: These viruses do not replicate themselves. Instead, they often pose as a harmless file that is downloaded from the web. These programs can result in the theft or destruction of data files. This type of virus is commonly picked up from peer to peer file sharing programs. Scan your system frequently with Swat It. More Info
Worms: Worms replicate themselves without using a host file and can spread very quickly across the internet by releasing documents it has infected. More Info
Viruses are released daily. It is imperative that you run some type of virus scanning software on your Pc.
Computer viruses are the common cold of the digital world. They're everywhere, spread quickly, and you'll feel miserable until they're gone. Fortunately they're also much easier to prevent.
Virus Removal Tools & Programs
BitDefender - For many different types of viruses
AnalogX Script Defender - Intercepts harmful scripts being run
Help Removing a Virus - McAfee has a help forum
Virus InformationVirus List.com - Information on current and past infections.
Sophos - Virus hoax database.
Virus or Hoax? - Info on real and hoax infections
F Secure - Info about hoaxes and real
Firewall Tools & Programs
Agnitum Outpost Firewall - Firewall with updates and poup blocker, more.
Zone Alarm - Another great firewall program, needed for cable or DSL
Comodo Firewall Pro -100% protection from these threats
Sunbelt Personal Firewall-» DOWNLOAD FREE TRIAL
Webroot Desktop Firewall -Get Webroot Desktop Firewall FREE
FREE: Trend Micro™ RUBotted
Malicious software
Malicious software called Bots can secretly take control of computers and make them participate in networks known as “Botnets.”
These networks can harness massive computing power and Internet bandwidth to relay spam, attack web servers, infect more computers, and perform other illicit activities.
Security experts believe that millions of computers have already joined Botnets without the knowledge of their owners.
By using remotely-controlled computers, the criminals in charge of the Botnets try to remain anonymous and elude authorities seeking to prosecute them.
RUBotted monitors your computer for suspicious activities and regularly checks with an online service to identify behavior associated with Bots.
Upon discovering a potential infection, RUBotted prompts you to scan and clean your computer
Virus Removal Programs Free.
Free edition of the AVG anti-virus program
Free anti-virus software for Windows
Anti-virus program for Windows
Freeware virus scanner for linix
Freeware, open-source anti-virus program.
Free anti-virus program for Windows.
Special edition from AOL
Free virus scanner for Windows,
Free Anti-Rootkit Software
Sophos Anti-Rootkit -Free tool for rootkit detection and removal
McAfee - Rootkit Detective Beta
Aries Rootkit Remover- Lavasofts New Rootkit remoal scanner
Virus Scanners
Virus scanners operate by searching your harddisk(s) for files which might be infected by a virus. This method is never 100% secure, since only known viruses (or known virus patterns) are detected.
If an infection has been detected in a certain file, the virus scanner might be able to clean the file, but very often this is not the case. In that case, you can try another scanner to clean the file, you can try to replace the file or - as a last resort - delete it.
However, if many important operating system files are affected, it might be the best solution to reformat the harddisk and install the operating system from scratch.
There are even viruses can not be cleaned by mere hard-disk reformatting. E.g. so-called boot-viruses infect the boot-sector of disks, and will very often not be removed by simply reformatting the harddisk. In this case you will need to repair the boot-sector, a good utility for this can be found in Norton Utilities (not free).
