Computer viruses are nasty pieces of software specially designed to penetrate your computer through the Internet or any other recordable media which is the plugged into your computer. The function of the virus is to wreak havoc on your computer system, period. Nasty computer viruses can infect, corrupt and delete all the information on your computer. Viruses are even designed with the sole aim of bring down entire computer networks. Therefore it is important to keep computer systems free from nasty viruses. Even if a single virus infects you computer, it can literally spoil the end of that particular system.
One of the more popular ways for a virus to infect your computer is through the email system. Many people just open email attachments without checking if it comes from someone they know. This is extremely risky because attachments are the ideal hiding places for these nasty computer viruses. Once you open the attachment, the virus will infect your computer and spread throughout the network if you are connected. Usually it will move on to your email contacts and replicates itself to be sent out to all your contacts. That is why it is good practise to scan emails with an anti-virus program before opening and reading it.
Another common method of infection is through the shared use of recordable media. Floppy disks were previously the carrier of choice for viruses but as it is no longer in use in modern computers, the flash drive is now the number one carrier of computer viruses which spread through recordable media. One infected flash drive is enough to stop an entire network so flash drives must also be scanned before being used in the computer.
Your tool against nasty computer viruses is a reliable and solid anti-virus program. There are two main alternatives of anti-virus programs: the ones that you need to pay and the ones which you don’t. There are many reputable commercial programs such as McAfee or Norton which are great anti-virus programs. However if you do not have the budget for it, then free alternatives like AVG or Vast can do the job as well. The difference is the free ones are usually only for personal use, not commercial.
Once the anti-virus software is installed, you need to set up the program so that it scans your computer on a regular basis, probably once every day. The scans usually run in the background so you do not have to be interrupted when the anti-virus program is running. Also, make sure that the anti-virus definition in the program is constantly updated. Nasty computer viruses are produced everyday so without regular updates, your anti-virus program may not be effective against newer viruses.
If you have an anti-virus program on your computer, you should be relatively safe for nasty computer viruses. However for added protection consider getting a firewall installed as well. The Windows Defender firewall is good enough for basic purposes but there are also great alternatives available on the internet such as Comodo or ZoneAlarm which can give you the total protection needed for your system.