As its title seems to imply, a virus is indeed a very damaging element which is certainly capable of causing enough chaos to a system to render it helpless, at least for a time.
The Basics
A virus program is usually able to replicate itself and this too is an added problem once the virus latches on to a system.
Progressively getting out of control, the virus will attempt to cause as much damage as possible before it can be detected and eliminated.
The replication is usually intentional and designed to act just like a Trojan, thus causing the unsuspecting user being caught off guard.
If a file that contains a virus is opened, or copied onto another computer, then the other computer will also become infected and this process is repeated every time the file is opened and downloaded onto other systems.
A virus can easily be introduced into a computer system along with any software program and this is bad news for the users of FTP otherwise referred to as file transfer protocol.
The viruses can also become a problem when there is referencing done and email attachments are being used.
When the virus enters the computer system, it can attach itself to, or even replace an existing program.
This of course is not good for the user, who will ultimately open the attachment or file and cause the virus to be activated.
