Symptoms of Virus Infection
What are Some Virus Symptoms?
It's true that some viruses cause strange things to happen. These can include:
• slower operation
• decreased memory
• or a disk drive LED lighting up for no apparent reason
However, legitimate software can also cause these
effects. And while some viruses are very obvious, displaying messages, or even
playing musical tunes, many give no sign of their presence. So it's important
not to assume your computer is infected, just because strange things happen.
Now we shall look into indications which may indicate viral infection. After that I have tried to give some tips for safe computing. While reading this article you may sound the tips too childish but nevertheless they can be critical. So don't overlook them and read on.
10 Virus Symptoms
1. Programs take longer to load. Memory-intensive operations
take a lot of time to start.
2. A change in dates against the filenames in the directory. When the virus
modifies a file the operating system changes the date stamp.
3. The floppy
disk or hard disk is suddenly accessed without logical reason.
4. Increased use
of disk space and growth in file size-the virus attaches itself to many files.
5. Abnormal write-protect
errors. The virus trying to write to a protected disk.
6. Strange characters
appear in the directory listing of filenames.
7. Strange messages
like "Type Happy Birthday Joshi" (Joshi Virus) or "Driver Memory
Error" (kak.worm) appear on the screen and in documents.
8. Strange graphic
displays such as falling letters or a bouncing ball appear on screen.
9. Programs may
hang the computer or not work at all.
10. Junk characters overwrite text in document or data files.
How Serious Are Viruses?
While
serious if you have one, viruses are only one way your data can be damaged.
You must be prepared for all threats; many of which are more likely to
strike than viruses. |
It's important to keep viruses
in perspective. There are many other threats to your programs and data that
are much more likely to harm you than viruses. A well known anti-virus researcher
once said that you have more to fear from a cup of coffee (which may spill)
than from viruses. While the growth in number of viruses and introduction of
the Microsoft Word® macro viruses and VisualBasic Script worms now puts
this statement into question (even though you can avoid these by just not clicking
on them to open them!), it's still clear that there are many dangerous occurrences
of data corruption from causes other than from viruses.
So, does this mean that viruses are nothing to worry about? Emphatically, no!
It just means that it's foolish to spend much money and time on addressing the
threat of viruses if you've done nothing about the other more likely threats
to your files. Because viruses and worms are deliberately written to invade
and possibly damage your PC, they are the most difficult threat to guard against.
It's pretty easy to understand the threat that disk failure represents and what
to do about it (although surprisingly few people even address this threat).
The threat of viruses is much more difficult to deal with. There are no "cures"
for the virus problem. One just has to take protective steps with anti-virus
software and use some common sense when dealing with unknown files.
