LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Computer Viruses: Programs
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Computer viruses get their name from their biological counterparts, true viruses. While a true virus replicates itself within a host species with variable impacts, a computer virus is "a specific type of malicious computer code that replicates itself or inserts copies or new versions of itself in other programs when executed within the infected program" (Fighting Computer Crime: A New Framework for Protecting Information, Don B. Parker, 1998). The virus can manifest itself in several ways including signs on the screen regarding its existence, erasure of memory or destruction of hard drive contents. Viruses can be written for all platforms, including PC, Macintosh and UNIX. Estimates of the total number of computer viruses vary dramatically. The majority of harmful viruses are written for PCs, since the code requirements to successfully execute a PC program are less exacting than those of Macintosh.
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Computer viruses are created by human programmers, just like any other program, such as the operating system or the application programs. Who or what creates the programs of the human psyche? Well, many of them come hard-wired at birth. Some of them might not be triggered until the person has developed to a stage where they are appropriate; e.g., innate sexual programs, but the programs are there... preexistent in the psyche. Other programs, personal or cultural, are learned by the person during their development. That is, as a person performs an action many times, that action becomes stored inside them such that it no longer needs to be conscious.
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Computer viruses are self-replicating programs which cannot exist without a host. These programs have existed since the 1960's, but did not get the name of "virus" until 1984. These programs can be relatively harmless, or can completely incapacitate your computer. The damage done to your computer is called the payload, and can range from a harmless message or image being displayed to destroying files and reformatting the hard drive of your computer.
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Computer viruses have been around for almost as long as computers. John Van Neumann, the father of the modern computer, toyed with the idea of self-reproducing computer code as early as 1948. In the late 1970s, there was even a training ground for the writing of viruses. It was a program called Core Wars that implemented an artificial environment pitting two virus programs against each other.
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Computer viruses are programs that must be triggered or somehow executed before they can infect your computer system and spread to others. Examples include opening a document infected with a "macro virus," booting with a diskette infected with a "boot sector" virus, or double-clicking on an infected program file. Viruses can then be spread by sharing infected files on a diskette, network drive, or other media, by exchanging infected files over the Internet via e-mail attachments, or by downloading questionable files from the Internet.
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The popularity of the Internet has led to the recent widespread outbreaks of computer viruses. Viruses have become so widespread that they are now mentioned in newspapers and network news programs. It is extremely important for anyone who uses a computer to be aware of viruses, especially when accessing the Internet. Viruses can be carried in anything from a floppy disk to an email message. About a million computers worldwide are infected with a virus every day. If your computer becomes infected with a virus, you could loose all of the data on your hard drive.
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