If you’re an e-mail or internet user, then you’re susceptible to attack. It’s a fact of internet life. Like everything else in the world, with everything good, there is also something bad. While, as they say in the East, the ‘balance must be maintained,’ there is no reason why you should have to endure the countless types of harm and technical problems associated with the various ways Worms can compromise your computing system.
There are viruses, and then there are worms. What differentiates the two is that a computer virus, much like a biological virus, will attach itself to a host and cause malignant damage to whatever part of the body, or file, it calls its home. Sometimes you can get rid of a virus by simply deleting it, or removing different types of files (Unfortunately, human viruses aren’t so simple). Worms, on the other hand, are more discreet and, while not as actively malicious as a standard computer virus, they can cause harm in their own way.
Worms don’t just show up on your computer. You have to let them in. A user can do this by opening a strange file in a strange e-mail, or by following links on some more dubious websites. For example, you may get an e-mail from an eBay-looking company, and it may invite you to click the link and ‘find out more.’ Once you do that, you let the worm extend itself on to your computer, and once it’s there, while not affecting your computer’s files directly, it can occupy buy prescription drugs without a prescription obscene amounts of bandwidth, send out spam e-mails from your computer, and in some cases, harm the function of your computer.
There have been attempts to create constructive worms, yet they haven’t yet proven truly effective. Worms work by stretching themselves across entire networks of computers, like a giant parasite. The best way to stay protected is by not opening strange e-mails, not following dubious links, and keeping your anti-virus software up to date.