Page 42 - Viva ICSE Computer Studies 7 : E-book

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The fi rst computer virus for MS-DOS was a boot sector virus dubbed Brain and was created in 1986.

Steps to Prevent a Computer from Virus

To protect your computer from viruses, always keep the following points in mind.

• Always keep your antivirus program updated.
• Restrict access to your system.
Think and Discuss
• Be careful with the attachments in your e-mails.
Read the e-mails only from known people. Why is it important to protect
computer against viruses?
• When you insert a CD or a pen drive in your
system, always scan it before opening.

• Do not download programs from non-reputed sources.
• Scan the hard disk every month.

• Create a backup of your important fi les every day.
• Install a firewall on your system to control the network traffi c.

Antivirus

Antivirus programs check the fi les on your computer to
detect the viruses and also remove them.

An antivirus consists of two main components.

• It contains a virus database which consists of list of fi le
patterns. It is used to identify a virus.
• It contains a scan engine that scans the fi les to verify if
there is an infection.

What Does an Antivirus Do?
• It scans computer fi les to look for known viruses.

• It scans incoming e-mails, which might contain virus in the attachments.

Some of the popular antivirus software are Norton, Kaspersky, AVG, McAfee and Quick Heal.

Antivirus software performs two types of scan.

1. Full System Scan: In this type, the antivirus scans the entire system. This is generally
done if the antivirus software is installed for the fi rst time or it has been updated.
2. Custom Scan: In this type, the antivirus scans the system as per the requirements.

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