Biological Virus v/s Computer Virus

A virus (biological or electronic) is basically an information disorder. There is very little difference between a biological and an electronic virus, apart from the fact that one is biological and the other electronic! Both are parasites which invade a body/machine and attach themselves to a cell/program. Once lodged, they monitor the activity of the host organism and subvert its mechanism in order to replicate themselves.

This is possible because each type of virus contains within itself, all the information required to make perfect copies of itself.

The host machine is “tricked” into “attaching” copies of the virus on to other programs or disks. It is this self-replicating nature of computer viruses which is the major cause for concern.

Generally, a computer virus acts like a parasite. It draws on the resources of the computer to monitor its activities, but otherwise does not immediately change the functioning of the host system. This is done to evade early detection. If the virus has destructive effects, the reaction must be delayed somehow, because if it immediately destroys the host software, it will never be able to reproduce and spread.

A virus is made up of two stages. The first (pre-trigger) stage will let the system run normally till a given time. This stage is not found in many of the PC viruses.