When you open or download a document, picture or file, and playing online casino en ligne games, there’s always a chance that something harmful can infect your computer. When you don’t want your computer to get infected by dangerous files, you can use antivirus software to scan for them before opening them. Antivirus programs vary in type, cost, effectiveness and user-friendliness. Some even offer free trials, allowing you to try out the program on your PC without having to purchase it until you’re sure it suits your needs. The 3 main types of computer viruses include the following:
The Overwrite Virus
This virus is one of the most common ones because it affects almost every Windows-based operating system such as Microsoft Windows 95, 98, Me, NT 4, 2000, XP and Vista. It installs itself into the registry, but it doesn’t necessarily require administrator privileges to do so. This means that even if you aren’t logged on as an administrative user at the time, this virus could still install its malicious code on your computer.
The Overwrite virus causes problems with the Windows bootloader and the way it loads programs. In fact, when the Overwrite virus enters your PC, it will create copies of itself within your hard drive. After installing this particular virus, the copy of itself remains hidden in all of your drives even after you delete the original version of the virus. Once infected, the Overwrite virus can wreak havoc on your system, making it completely unusable due to slow performance or system crashes.
The Shortcut Virus
Also known as “Trojan Horse” or “Malicious Mouse Clicker” worms, these are small pieces of code that hijack existing shortcut files. These viruses usually come disguised as useful programs. When you click a shortcut attached to them, the shortcut virus will execute silently in the background, thus enabling hackers to gain access to sensitive information from your computer, steal confidential data like passwords and login IDs and other personal details. If this happens while your system is running, the result will be disastrous.
The Worm/Ransomware Virus
A variant of the Trojan horse, this one comes packaged with many different types of malware, including Trojans, keyloggers, backdoors, bots, etc. It may also contain ads, text files or other executable codes. The Ransomware Virus typically displays a message stating that the victim’s data has been encrypted and that they need to pay in order to recover their data, although some variants display messages asking users to send a certain amount of money via bank transfer or Bitcoin. Other versions of this virus have been known to force users to watch violent movies or view pornographic videos.
