Virus in a biological term means a parasitic organism that can cause illness by injecting its own DNA / RNA into a host cell as a means of replication, which then makes multiple copies of itself.
Computer virus undergo the same principle.
A computer virus is a piece of code that attaches itself to
a file or program, and can spread by infecting
other files or programs on the same computer
or network. When the infected file or program is
executed, the virus is activated and can carry
out its harmful effects, such as deleting files or
stealing information.
MODE OF OPERATION
When a virus is triggered in a computer, it will try to copy itself and spread by infecting other files and programs in a computer network.
Sometimes this virus copies can be a little different from the original which then makes it hard for antivirus software to eliminate them.
They can attach themselves to completely legitimate files like emails attachment or even movie files.
PREVENTIVE MEASURE
A virus can be prevented from over-riding your system by using an ANTIVIRUS.
Most antivirus work by scanning your database for known malicious software but that leaves you exposed to new viruses that haven't been identified/known yet.
The best antivirus have developed new ways to track such viruses.
Own of such ways is known as HEURISTIC ANALYSIS.
Heuristic Analysis is the scanning of related viruses into families, that way they can use a broader generic signature to identify anything that looks or act like a virus from each family of viruses.
Another method is ROOTKIT DETECTION which is used to check and see which actions a program is attempting to execute and based on those actions determine if it's malicious or not.
The best antivirus add MACHINE LEARNING to their antivrus so they can predict what's about to happen based on previous similar actions and stop malware attacks before it happens.
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