The word virus is often used to describe three different types of computer infections: worms, trojans and viruses. These are malicious programs that get installed on a computer, often without the knowledge of the user, and can lead to privacy being invaded and/or data being destroyed or corrupted on users' hard drives.

These infections are primarily spread in the following ways:

• Viruses: via email attachments and file sharing
• Worms: by being connected to the Internet without effective protection
• Trojans: by visiting corrupted websites

Symptoms of an infected computer include:

• Computer is unstable and crashing frequently;
• Slow Internet connection;
• You receive a call from your Internet technical support alerting you of the situation.

To forestall, or correct, a computer infection, install a virus-checking program, and keep it up-to-date. It is worth noting that some viruses will disable virus checkers and you may need to try a few different programs to find and remove an infection.

Some common virus checking programs:

• Norton or Symantic Antivirus - www.symantec.com
• AVG - www.grisoft.com
• McAfee virus checker - www.mcafee.com

In addition, you should have a firewall or router (with firewall built in).

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