Viruses vs Malware
Your computer has frozen. Sometimes it’s on a page that is demanding money to give you control of your computer back. Sometimes it just dies, and you can’t get it going again for love or money. Sometimes it just runs slowly and sometimes it crashes completely.
Most of the time we will say that we have a virus in our computer and, just like the ones we can have in our body, these viruses attack the hard drive space of our computer or the central processing unit, which makes it very hard to repair.
By definition, a computer virus is a malicious software program that replicates itself by modifying other programs and inserting its own code. That is, it gets into your computer and then takes over your programs, sometimes leaving them not working at all.
Those who release these viruses are using social engineering tricks to exploit vulnerabilities in systems. Sometimes, even if you have a security system on your computer, the virus can bypass it and still infect you. Viruses cost billions of dollars a year in economic damage because the damage they cause is so great. They are the object of profit or political messages or sabotage. Sometimes the people who create them just do it for the pleasure of seeing users suffer, and suffer.
On the other hand, malware is malicious software such as ransomware, worms, Trojan horses, and spyware. Fortunately, they don’t mess with hard drive space or take over your computer, although they’re still annoying to own and manage.
There are plenty of places that deal with removing malware from your computer and even programs you can download to scan and remove it from your system. Now that we know more about these things, security systems have pre-scheduled scans that are done at an allotted time to scan the computer and alert you to any problems before they become too big to handle. Using an antivirus program and your security, you are in a good place to keep your computer running smoothly. Sure, sometimes it’s slow and sometimes you need professional help and luckily there are those who deal with computers on a daily basis and know what they’re doing.
In the meantime, back up everything important so you don’t lose it if the next big virus hits your computer.
