What is a Virus ?

A virus is, however, capable of reproducing within the host cell by making use of the cellular processes of the host cell.

Counting these areas and multiplying by the dilution factor allowed him to calculate the number of viruses in the original suspension

Virtually all cells are susceptible to infection by viruses.

Phages were heralded as a potential treatment for diseases such as typhoid and cholera, but their promise was forgotten with the development of penicillin.

Different types of viruses infect different host cells. Thus there are viruses that infect plants, others that infect bacterial cells (these viruses are called bacteriophage or phage), and viruses that infect humans and other mammals.

Both eukaryotes and prokaryotes can be infected by viruses.

The study of phages provided insights into the switching on and off of genes, and a useful mechanism for introducing foreign genes into bacteria.

All viruses contain genetic material, either DNA or RNA, enclosed in a case made of protein.

Viruses vary greatly in shape and size. Not all viruses carry disease.

Antibiotics have no effect on viruses. Some anti-viral drugs are available that can be used to treat viral infections.

Viruses, bacteria, and amoebae are microorganisms.

The study of microorganisms is called microbiology.

Recommended reading at Virology and current topics on microbiology research at the Microbiology Blog

A computer virus is a malicious program that self-replicates by copying itself to another program. In other words,

the computer virus spreads by itself into other executable code or documents.

The purpose of creating a computer virus is to infect vulnerable systems, gain admin control and steal user sensitive data. Hackers design computer viruses with malicious intent and prey on online users by tricking them.

One of the ideal methods by which viruses spread is through emails – opening the attachment in the email, visiting an infected website,

clicking on an executable file, or viewing an infected advertisement can cause the virus to spread to your system. Besides that, infections also spread while connecting with already infected removable storage devices, such as USB drives.

It is quite easy and simple for the viruses to sneak into a computer by dodging the defense systems.

A successful breach can cause serious issues for the user such as infecting other resources or system software, modifying or deleting key functions or applications and copy/delete or encrypt data.

There are two types of ways in viruses operate, as soon as they land on a new device they begin replicating, while the second type plays dead until a particular trigger makes the malicious code to be executed.

Thereby, it is highly important to stay protected by installing a robust antivirus program.

Presently, the sophisticated ones come with evasion capabilities that help in bypassing antivirus software and other advanced levels of defenses.

Subsequently, the polymorphic malware development in the recent times enables the viruses to dynamically change its code as it spreads.

This has made the virus detection and identification very challenging.