Computer Bugs and Viruses
What are Computer Bugs? What are Computer Viruses?
BUGS
Most software that is designed for computers is unable to be tested at 100 percent perfect working order due to the vast size and complexity of programs. Therefore many of the software products that are available (including operating systems) for consumers will cause certain problems to occur.
If the software being used is of an older type, it is likely that the bug has been discovered and a solution of some sort is available. If the product is brand new then you may not have the answer to your problem available right away but you will be generally be welcomed by the support staff of the product concerned for discovering the bug. These individuals will then set about fixing the bug and deciding whether the problem is big enough to warrant marketing the solution. You can locate software support staff by reading through the documentation that was provided with the software. This further emphasises why you should
NEVER throw out this documentation.
VIRUSES
Viruses can be a technician’s worst nightmare. They can cause all sorts of problems from floppy drives being constantly write protected to hard disks just ceasing to work at all. The first thing you should do when diagnosing a computer problem is to scan the hard disk for a virus first. There are many virus scanning software packages available; the most popular ones are NOD32, McAfee and Symantec utilities.
There are also many different virus scans available as free downloads off the internet. These do the job alright but they might have expiry dates of 1 month etc. and you might have to constantly download new copies. Because new viruses are constantly being released, it is important to make sure you have the latest version of virus updates before scanning so that the software can detect all the latest viruses. New virus definitions are released daily for all the major software packages.
A computer virus is a type of program that invades computers and can perform a lot of functions on the target computer such as displaying pop up messages, tampering with personal files and data, or even deleting files and destroying the computer’s hard disk. There are also other types of attacks known as Trojan horses and worms, and these can also carry out malicious activities on the target computers that they infect.
When a computer is infected, the virus is generally executing its lines of code on that computer; therefore, the virus behaves like a parasite so that the computer would think that this piece of software is carrying out legitimate actions. Another nasty feature for a computer’s virus is that it can replicate it self and copy malicious code to other files and disks accessible from the infected computer, and can spread pretty quickly.
Before a computer virus runs and spreads to other computers or resources, it needs to be triggered or executed. For example, an excel sheet containing macros can become the home of a “macro virus”, and this virus will execute as soon as the spreadsheet is open. There are several ways for a virus to spread: over a computer network, via attachments in emails, exchange of infected files on the internet, via downloading files from untrusted websites on the internet.
[21/05/2012 15:43:14]
