The term virus is often used imprecisely to refer to not only viruses, but also Trojan horses and worms. In this document we will refer to all of these as viruses for simplification. The term virus is used to point out the analogy between biological viruses and computer viruses. Like biological viruses, the computer variant can be dangerous, especially if not caught and treated quickly. Some viruses may not do serious damage to your computer. They may display silly messages or change your screen saver. Most viruses, however, were not created with such good intentions, and can do serious damage to your computer. A virus may cause your computer to crash frequently, delete important files, and even infect your computer so that it can no longer boot. Viruses can be passed to other computers whenever files are shared. Worms are highly contagious and will infect other computers without human intervention.

 

Protect your pc from harmful infections by installing a firewall, anti-virus or internet security. A firewall helps protect your pc from infection by blocking the program altogether.  Windows XP has a built in firewall, but it may not be strong enough for today's rep on viruses.  Anti-virus works alongside your firewall to help protect your files. Some anti-virus come with real time scanning which means if you are on the web, you are protected. And some just come with a scanner that won't find the problem till after the scanner has found it...by then it may be too late.