26/05/2010
Worm or Virus – What is the difference?
If your computer comes up with a warning that you have a virus or a worm, do you know what the difference is?
Viruses are computer programs that multiply themselves. It gets into your computer, hides and embeds itself inside programs even your operating system. Viruses can not spread to other computers unless it is sent to someone in an email.
Worms are also computer programs that multiply themselves. Unlike like viruses that stay on one computer they spread between computers and affect the performance and destroy the memory. It will locate other computers on your network and spread. Even more worrying is that it will access your address book and send itself to all your friends, family and clients.
In both cases, it destroys your computer and worse case it passes itself onto people you know.
Simple Differences
Worms are created for multiplying between computers and Viruses are created to multiply on one computer.
Worms take control of your computer while viruses delete files from your computer.
Solution
The best protection is to buy yourself some anti virus software to protect your computer. Do not buy one that pops up on your screen to tell you have a virus as these can be viruses or worms themselves.
Buy from well known reputable companies like McAfee, Kaspersky, sophos or Norton. These can be purchased direct on there websites in form of a download or available in your local computer store on the shelf.
www.norton.com
www.mcafee.com
www.sophos.com
www.kaspersky.co.uk