VIRUS SCANS +

Viruses come in many forms throughout the years. 

Many have caused havoc amongst operating systems from windows 1995 - windows 7.  Nowadays computer virus's are more just ransomware and worms, and not as threating as viruses of years past. 

What is a computer virus?

Computer viruses come in many types of files and are considered malware that, when executed, replicates itself by modifying other programs and inserting their own code, potentially causing damage or disruption to a computer system & spreading to other devices within the computer or on a network .

Top 10 Viruses for Personal Computers

1. Boot Sector viruses - These are like beepers and Tamagotchi's, these terrible little things were big in the 90s. one of the oldest viruses, the go straight to the core of your computer affecting the startup or 'boot' process. Back in the day, these viruses were spread through floppy disk, either 5.25 or 3.5 floppy disks.  Nowadays they attach themselves to emails and USB sticks. IF your computer catches one of these nasty buggers, you will need an expert to carry out a full system reformat. 

2. Trojan Horse Viruses - These sneaky viruses, mainly used by cyber-criminals, are disguised as normal programs, tempting you to install them on your computer. Once installed, the viruses gain access to your computer's files and capturing your private data, such as passwords, credit card information, usernames, and banking information. They can be used then by hackers to make online purchase with bank accounts or expose your private information. 

3. Macro viruses - Found in Microsoft Office Programs such as word & excel files to embed, these viruses increase the size of files when they infect them as they attach their own code into a file. Once infected it can easily spread to other computers that the file is shared for example via email. 

4. Multipartite viruses -  AKA Multi-part Viruses, these flexible fiends either attack a computer's central boot sector or through its files, or do both. These versatile viruses are hard to prevent, which explains the rapid growth rate in recent years. They usually spread through .exe files, programs like word or excel, and eat up your virtual memory and causing messages stating 'Your computer has low virtual memory' thus slowing down your computer. 

5. Polymorphic viruses -  These sly viruses change its color, so to say, for every situation, modifies whenever it replicates. This makes it hard for most anti-virus programs to keep up. Once its found a way onto your computer, it usually through an email attachment or a download from suspicious websites, it is given free reign to delete your files, and generally sabotage your system. The bad news about these chameleons is that these viruses are on the rise and attaching to everything on the web from emails and downloads, but anti-virus software are adapting alongside them as well and using more sophisticated scanning techniques to catch them in the act. 

6. Resident viruses - These common viruses are sneaky little squatters find their way into your computer's memory, completely uninvited, and make themselves at home. They come from email attachments, infected downloads, or shared files and are then activated whenever your computer performs a specific action and can even attach themselves to anti-virus software, scamming the very thing that's tasked with bringing it down. The best solution? Get and expert to remove them. 

7. Spacefiller Virus - AKA 'Cavity Viruses' find empty spaces in a program code and climb right in by adding their own code. This way, they don't alter the size of files as other viruses do. which makes them hard to detect. Most antivirus programs find it hard to catch Spacefillers, but there are a few manual virus-hunting tools that tech experts use to root them out. These viruses are very rare, and less likely to create. 

8. Web scripting viruses - These modern age viruses are very clever little bugs that blend into the background of popular websites and are usually within social media platforms. they disguise themselves as normal links, tempting you to click on them like so-called sponsored advertisements. Then once clicked they steal your information (cookies), these viruses should not be taken lightly as they can send spam to your system and damage your data and spread faster than that of most viruses. So Always have an Ad blocker on your PC such as AdGuard

9. Browser hijackers - These take over your internet searches and redirect you to pages you didn't want to visit. These viruses are most common in everyday life, while not as harmful as other type of viruses, they trick you rather than steal from you, but they are still an annoying problem since they significantly lower your UX when surfing the internet. If experience many random pop-up adverts or or your usual homepage browser has changed without you telling it to, chances are you've got a browser hijacker. Always scan email attachments before opening and avoiding downloading files from suspicious websites no matter how good they are to be true. 

10. Overwrite viruses -  These pests typically take over a file and wipe the original code without you even knowing it. Once deleted, the original files cannot be recovered and the data is lost, they often spread through emails via attachments or through file downloads on the internet, so always scan files with an anti-virus software before downloading and opening them. 

Others Included:

• File infector viruses -  also knows as file infectors, are a type of malware that infects executable files like .com and .exe files, spreading by attaching their code to these files and potentially damaging or disrupting the system. Prevention of these viruses include, installing and keep up-to-date antivirus software, regularly updating your operating system and software, disabling autorun on removable media, using strong multibit passwords, and backing up your files regularly. 

• Direct action viruses -  like file infector viruses infecting .com and .exe files, these viruses are more or less a type of malware that executes its payload upon infecting a computer. These brute force viruses, unlike other viruses that are dormant, take action as soon as they are triggered, often causing immediate - destructive damage or major disruption. Direct action viruses are often referred to as Non-Resident because the don't remain in the computer's memory after they've acted, unlike resident viruses.