Technology Issueadmin / January 11, 2019
As much as technology is useful to human beings, it comes with its challenges. One of such challenge that has troubled technology users for a long period of time is computer viruses. They refer to computer programs that are created by malicious software developers or computer programmers to harm other people’s computers.
Computer viruses are a great problem as they cause damage to data and they can potentially lead to system malfunction (Brain 1). Other viruses can be used by hackers to get information from other people’s computers without permission.
Solutions to computer viruses
The best solution for the problem of computer viruses is installation of antivirus software on computer systems. Once antivirus software is installed in a computer system, it protects the computer system from such malicious software and ensures that any program that runs in the computer system is authorized.
Examples of antivirus software include Kaspersky, McAfee, Norton, Avast etcetera. The only down side of antivirus software is that they are also programs and thus they are not intrinsically perfect.
The antivirus software is thus frequently updated in order for it to efficiently protect a computer system (Brain 1). This may prove to be expensive to the user although the cost of updating antivirus software is not as high as the initial cost of acquiring the antivirus software.
The computer system user should also be extra careful while using his/her computer. This is especially crucial when the user is working with online application since the World Wide Web has many viruses. Sometimes hackers and virus developers may even develop an application that will ask the user to click on a window to see what it contains.
On clicking the window, the virus is permitted to run in the users computer systems and, this way, it may lead to performance bottlenecks or cause serious loss of data. It is thus of essence for users to ensure that they do not run applications that they are not sure about.
Users should also avoid being gullible while viewing high risk sites like entertainment sites in which such applications are found. Other links and images that may be sent as spam messages by hackers and virus developers should also be avoided. This is because most computers get infected with viruses though the use of the internet.
With the continued use of, and advancement in, technology, a lot of technology-related problems have arisen. Viruses are more destructive than ever. Organizations are continually losing important and costly information.
This calls for keener and greater care of our computer systems against the effects of viruses. Other measures that people can take to mitigate the effects of viruses are ensuring that files are properly backed-up so that once information is lost the organization does not go back to the drawing board.
Efforts should also be made to ensure that once a computer system is infected with viruses, the information saved in it is salvaged.
For instance, files and information in a computer system operating a Windows Operating System can be salvaged by running a live CD of the Linux OS.
This is done by booting the computer system from the Linux OS CD and finding the files that are not part of the Windows System files, and are not created by the user. The only disadvantage of this kind of operation is that it requires a highly intelligent IT (Information Technology) professional.
Brain, Marshall. “How Computer Viruses Work”. 2010 – January 13, 2010,