Oct 25, 2014

How Computer Viruses Work by Jeremy Hall

The computer virus has a history which spans almost the entire lifespan of home computers. Computer viruses as we know them first made their appearance in the late 1980's. The first computer viruses came at a time which was perfect for their ability to spread and to achieve the dominance they have now. Lets look at some of the reasons.
The late 1980's saw the number of personal computers being used increase dramatically. Before the 1980's there where no computers as we know them today. Any computers being used where only used by experts in educational and military implementations. It was the popularity of the IBM PC in 1982 that saw a surge in the number of computers being used in homes and businesses. By the late 1980's computers were becoming a permanent fixture in homes,offices and in schools and colleges.
The second important part of the advent of computer viruses was the bulletin board. Using a modem computer users could dial a bulletin board and featured primitive versions of the email we all use nowadays as well as in many cases the ability to download all sorts of programs. It was the advent of the bulletin boards that not only gave enthusiasts a fertile ground to spread the sort of information that enabled programmers to develop malicious programs but also gave them a fertile breeding ground. The age of the trojan horse was ushered in by the birth of the bulletin board.
Before you can do what is necessary to answer the question of how can I remove a trojan horse virus from my computer you must understand what it is.
A trojan horse started out as a program with its name taken from Homer's Iliad. The name and description of the program would entice people to download it and once downloaded it would proceed to conduct malicious activities on the pc. Some Trojan horse programs would be bound to valid programs and others would use subterfuge to delay the user from suspecting their pc had been infiltrated.
Trojan horses generally only infect a few people at a time because if you are vigilant towards these kinds of malware they are very easy to detect and easy to remove. Warnings of these kind of programs would spread fast so their activity would be on a limited timeframe only.
The most significant reason for the start of computer viruses was the creation of the floppy disk. In the 1980's computer programs where very small so it was rare that computers would have hard discs as they have now. In fact apart from very basic operating systems some would require floppy discs to even start up. This meant that it became possible to hide virus code in the system areas of floppy discs, once an operating system disc was infected any other clean discs inserted into the system would be attacked and act as a stepping stone to another clean system.
In order to learn how do I remove a virus from my computer it is beneficial to understand the history of computer viruses. The only way to be able to fight these types of malicious software is to have a clear understanding of where these malware threats come from.

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