Living in XXI century, you have a chance to have an access to loads of information sparing no efforts. Only one click of your mouse and the needed service or purchase is presented to you immediately. However, in the same easy manner, not skilled user can get a virus. There is a countless number of these troublemakers, for instance, Code Red, Morris, Melissa, Nimba, Blaster and Sasser. This is the list of the most widely spread and dangerous viruses. In the last decade, thousands of people have suffered a loss because of the viruses. Probably, every second person can share such a sad experience, and you, dear reader, are not an exception.
Computer viruses are of different kinds and they function following no particular pattern, but is there one out of the ordinary? Although there is no right answer to this question, we would try to find more on the topic.
You would be surprised that the most common virus is called ILOVEYOU. The creators are programmers from Filipinos, Reonel Ramones and Onel de Guzman. In 2000, they constructed the most cunning virus ever, creating the way to steal Internet access passwords. The scheme was pretty uncomplicated. First, the user received a letter with a subject “ILOVEYOU.” What is more, the email contained an attachment “LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.” Millions of people got such a friendly email letter at once, and only few of them miraculously did not open it and prevented infection of their PCs. In response to these actions, the attachment despoiled the users’ address list.
Broadly speaking, the general situation was advantageous itself, as very few people had security programs installed. Nowadays, experts estimate that “Love-Bug” virus was a tool that earned approximately $10 billion. Generally, more than tenth of all the computers in the World that had connection to the Internet were infected.
To sum up, every virus has its method of intrusion into your personal device, and it aims to take the upper hand and make some of its functions inoperative. Being aware of the possible scenario, you should open unknown files very carefully. Even if the name of the file does not seem to be suspicious, it does not mean it may not bring harm. This paper is produced in order to inform you and warn you against being a victim of the sly hacking schemes. Unfortunately, the modern programming technologies make an ordinary user almost disarmed. Therefore, knowledge on how to protect yourself from computer viruses is not just an interesting piece if information, but one of the most important things to survive in the modern and harsh reality.
