Why Having No Antivirus Software Can Be a Serious Pain in the Hard Drive

Computers, for all their benefits, suffer from a common and very annoying problem: viruses. Make sure, then, that your computer is protected by antivirus software so that you’re able to work with confidence.

Whether it’s PC antivirus software or Mac antivirus software, having antivirus software is important to make sure that your computer doesn’t end up with the technological equivalent of a few days in bed. Viruses can do serious damage to your computer and, worst of all, sometimes without you even knowing it. One virus, for example, might simply cause a slightly annoying pop-up window to appear on your desktop screen, but another might cause your hard drive to corrupt and delete all of your files. Obviously that’s a worst case scenario, but it does happen from time to time.

There’s nothing too annoying with a tiny pop-up, surely? Wrong. A virus is a virus, and while not necessarily doing any damage to your computer, you still have to go through the time and effort to get rid of it. What’s more, if a virus has got on to a network such as the one you probably have at work, then it’s going to cost your company a lot of money to get rid of what is simply an electronic stranger that won’t go away. Since you can now get free antivirus software, it’s definitely worth downloading.

So, what types of viruses and infections are out there, plotting away at your computer’s demise? Well, there are three main types: 1. Viruses 2. Trojan Horses 3. Worms Computer viruses get onto your computer in the same way that human viruses get into your body: they latch onto something else, and then invade. This could be anything from a spreadsheet to a music track download. They can then spread across all of your files because they have the ability to replicate themselves over and over, hence the name and comparison to the biological virus.

A Trojan horse, like the one in the infamous Greek legend, purports to be harmless while hiding a much darker real motive. It could pretend to be a game or a pop-up, for example, which once opened can do damage to your computer while you aimlessly click away the pop-up window or hammer away at the game. Most Trojan horses wipe out your hard drive or stop certain aspects of it from working correctly, and some will even stop your computer from running altogether. Trojans don’t have the ability to replicate themselves (mercifully), but this doesn’t mean that they should be taken any less seriously than a more typical computer virus.

Worms, as the name suggests, are ugly and wriggly little infectious pieces of software that exploit security holes in networks. They scan networks for computers with holes in their security, and then copy themselves to those computers. From here, they do the same to every other computer on the network until each one is infected. Worms either cause damage by using up your computer’s bandwidth and slowing it down to a crawl or by downloading malware. Put simply, you’ll want to avoid getting worms.

There is also another threat to your computer’s security in the form of malicious software, more commonly known as malware. Malware is simply software that has only one of two purposes: to destroy information or to extract very personal information from you. A piece of malware that wants to get your personal information could come in the form of bogus software that claims to help protect your computer.

A well-known example of this is that of ‘security tool antivirus software’. This program, once downloaded on to your computer, claims to be antivirus software that has found multiple ‘threats’ on your computer. It will only remove them, however, once you have bought the software. It frequently and repeatedly flashes up messages stating that your computer is at risk, and just to make matters worse, it disables your Task Manager on Windows so you can’t access Safe Mode.

The point of malware is to get hold of your personal details, in this case your credit card information. As such, do not attempt to buy this or any other products that appear on your computer in this way: they are simply there to scam you. If you do end up getting malware like this, run System Restore on your computer to its last restore point, and it should rid your computer of this severe threat.

So, why do people create electronic threats? For many reasons, really. Some people want to gain sensitive information from you such as credit card details, bank statements and addresses. Others want to feel like they can outwit current up to date software, including Windows 7 antivirus software. Some simply just want to cause havoc, gaining a thrill from causing problems for others: the more computers and files they destroy and cause disruption to, the bigger the thrill it can be for them. All electronic threats to computers are man-made.

With all the electronic nightmares out there on the Internet, how can you protect yourself? Well, as previously mentioned, get some antivirus software installed on your PC or Mac. It really goes without saying that antivirus software can make a difference to your computer’s security.

In an age where cyber crime and just general disarray on the Internet exists, having antivirus software can help to prevent you having to deal with the perils and pitfalls of viruses and other unwanted infections on your machine. It will also give you peace of mind, allowing you to go about using your computer on a daily basis without having to worry about viruses, Trojan horses or worms.