Page 41 - Viva ICSE Computer Studies 7 : E-book

to monitor employees’ browsing activities. Spyware can be diffi cult to detect. Often, the fi rst
indication in case of a computing device is the reduced processor and network connection
speed. As observed in mobile devices, data usage increases simultaneously reducing the
battery life.

Symptoms of a Virus

Following are the symptoms that indicate that a computer is infected by a virus.
• Computer’s hard disk is fi lled up by the virus as the virus copies itself endless times.
• Computer shuts down and restarts automatically.

• Speed of the computer is reduced.
• Unexpected error message pop-ups are displayed.

• Certain fi les, folders or drives become inaccessible.
• Computer starts doing many things on its own like moving the cursor, and opening and
closing of certain fi les.

Entry of Virus into a Computer

Some of the ways in which a computer gets infected with
a virus are as follows.
• By using infected CDs or pen drives

• Through e-mail attachments
• Through fi les download from the Internet
• Starting an infected application as it infects other running applications

Impact of a Virus
A virus can aff ect the computer in the following ways.

• It can irritate the computer users.
• It fi lls up the disk space of a computer by copying itself endless
times.

• It can modify or corrupt important fi les.
• It can infect data fi les stored in a computer.
• It can infect the executable program fi les like Microsoft Word and operating system.

What a Virus Cannot Do?
Learn More
A virus cannot do the following.
The symptoms of a virus
• It cannot infect computer hardware like keyboard
include computer lockups,
and monitor. data loss, screen distortions

• It cannot infect fi les which are written on a protected and reduced performance.
disk like CD-ROM.

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