| When you listen to the news, you hear about
many different forms of electronic infection. The most common
are: Viruses
A virus is a small piece of software that piggybacks on real
programs. For example, a virus might attach itself to a program
such as a spreadsheet program. Each time the spreadsheet program
runs, the virus runs, too, and it has the chance to reproduce
(by attaching to other programs) or wreak havoc.
E-mail viruses
An e-mail virus moves around in e-mail messages, and usually
replicates itself by automatically mailing itself to dozens of
people in the victim's e-mail address book.
Worms
A worm is a small piece of software that uses computer
networks and security holes to replicate itself. A copy of the
worm scans the network for another machine that has a specific
security hole. It copies itself to the new machine using the
security hole, and then starts replicating from there, as well.
Trojan horses
A Trojan horse is simply a computer program. The program
claims to do one thing (it may claim to be a game) but instead
does damage when you run it (it may erase your hard disk).
Trojan horses have no way to replicate automatically.
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