E-saftey

A virus is a program(s) that tries to do something unwanted to your computer. Malicious software has been around as long as computers. The fist computer viruses were not deliberately made but came from errors in software programs. These errors caused system crashes and became known as 'bugs'. However, people realized that they could create their own bugs and even get them to self-replicate, and so the computer virus was born. You may wonder what person makes malware and for what reason. The truth is, all sorts of people make malware and for all sorts of reasons. 

Hackers, thses are people who create malware to cause distruption and hack into high-rofile computer systems, either just for fun or some political agenda. Criminals, these are peolpe who create malware to steal data and money.

There are lots of computer viruses:

Program viruses, these infect executable files (programs) and the virus is installed into the computer memory with the executable file, where it infects other files and acts out what it was prgrammed to do.

Boot viruses, these viruses infect the operating systems when they start up, so it re-installed every time your computer is turened on.

Worms, thses are similar to a cputer virus, a worm can self-replicate itself and is designed to do harm. However worms don't need human assistance to spread (open mail, download a software, etc) it can spread over computer networks without assistance. When one computer is infected the virus will spread onto other computers in that network.

Trojons these are most dangerous types of viruses and can be very hard to get rid off. 

More about viruses and hacking are explained in the videos below.

However, there is no need to fear. Some companies have created programs that fight thses nasty virus and stop them from stealing your information or ruining your computer. These are called 'Anti-virus'. But the peoblem is the more andvanced these programs get the more advanced hacking and viruses get and so these programs aren't always 100% effective. This means don't take these programs for granted and think that they are going to protect you all the time. Some applications are listed below, if you want to download any of these applications select the 'click here' (the 'click here' is highlighted) 

These are some of the Anti-virus aplications: 

These are free:

• AVG (Click Here)

• Avast (Click Here)

• Microsoft Security Essentials (Click Here)

Paid versions usually give more protection or accessories but this is not always guranteed and on some very rare occasions free versions are better than paid versions.

These are paid:

• Norton (Click Here)

• McAfee (Click Here)

• Sophos (Click Here)

• AVG (Click Here)  = Pro    

• AVG (Click Here)  = Ultimate