Viruses, both real and computer, are fascinating little critters. They are practically useless outside of a living host (in the case of a biological virus) or a computer system (in the case of a computer virus). But, once they infiltrate the host’s body or system, they begin their real work. Computer viruses can only enter a computer system through vulnerabilities. If those vulnerabilities are removed, the virus will be defenseless and unable to do any harm. One way to prevent computer viruses from infiltrating your computer is to install antivirus firewall software on your machine.
In order to prevent virus infections more effectively, it is important that you are familiar with how it works.
Computer viruses are essentially just software code or software programs created by humans. Once a computer virus infiltrates a system, it installs itself in other files on the host system. For example, the virus may be inserted into an executable file on the computer system, and each time that executable file is executed or invoked, the virus code is also executed. Computer viruses replicate and spread in this way.
Also, computer viruses often destroy computer files. By injecting virus code into files and documents on your computer, the virus can render those files useless. Therefore, if the files are what your computer needs to function properly, a virus infection can effectively corrupt your system so that it no longer boots.
Some viruses are as small as a kilobyte, others can be several kilobytes, even megabytes. In general, however, most viruses are small in size. Their small sizes make them easy to spread.
Hundreds of computer viruses are spread or written every day. But, most of them can be easily detected by a good antivirus firewall software program. Some viruses that have not yet been identified or are still “in the wild” can wreak havoc for a while, until antivirus software companies start noticing them and their behavior. Once these “wild” viruses are contained, antivirus companies send out fixes and software patches so that your system can protect itself from infection by the newly arrived virus.
At the end of the day, it all boils down to, you need to protect yourself from being infected by computer viruses. You can do this by installing antivirus firewall software on your computer.