It has become increasingly common for spam to contain malicious programs or software that can be harmful to both your computer. The purpose of these small, malicious is to perform unauthorized, usually harmful, actions, when they self-install into your computer system, and infect your programs and files. They are commonly spread by e-mail, in the form of cleverly disguised attachments that trick you into clicking on them.
The most common of these programs are: Viruses, Trojan Horses, Malware and Adware. Knowing what they are and how they work will help you better protect yourself from malicious spam.
Viruses
A virus is a computer program that is specifically created to replicate itself and to infect a computer system without permission or even knowledge of the user. Viruses come in several varieties including:
The Boot Sector Virus
This virus will infect the root-most part of your computer hard drive, called the boot sector. This is what is used to start up your computer.
This type virus can prevent your computer from starting and may even force a hard drive format, causing you to lose all of the information on your computer in one fell swoop.
