What are the symptoms of a computer virus?
What are the symptoms of a computer virus?
A computer virus is a code or program that is designed to copy itself and corrupt your computer. Viruses can spread through email attachments, downloads, websites, and even through social media sites. They can cause your computer to crash, delete files, and even steal personal information.
The most common symptom of a virus is a slow or dysfunctional computer. Other symptoms may include:
• Frequent pop-up ads
• New icons or toolbars on your desktop or in your web browser
• Changes to your homepage or other settings in your web browser
• A decrease in performance when opening programs or browsing the internet
• Strange emails being sent from your account
• An increase in crashes or errors
• Unknown programs running in the background
If you suspect that your computer has a virus, the best thing to do is run a virus scan with your antivirus software. This will help to identify and remove any malicious code..Find Out More
10 Most destructive computer viruses of all time
The 10 most destructive computer viruses of all time are: 1. Code Red 2. ILOVEYOU 3. Melissa 4. Klez 5.SQL Slammer 6. Blaster 7. SoBig 8. WannaCry 9. NotPetya 10. Doomjuice
Code Red:
Code Red was a computer worm that infected Microsoft IIS web servers. It was responsible for defacing over 359,000 websites in just a few hours on July 13th, 2001. The virus was spread by exploiting a buffer overflow vulnerability in the indexing service of IIS. Code Red was relatively easy to remove, but it caused a significant amount of damage nonetheless.
ILOVEYOU:
ILOVEYOU was a computer worm that spread via email attachments. It caused an estimated $5.5 billion in damage and infected over 50 million computers. The worm was first discovered on May 4th, 2000 and continued to spread until May 17th. ILOVEYOU was so destructive because it not only replicated itself, but also deleted important files and emailed itself to everyone in the victim’s address book.
Melissa:
Melissa was a computer virus that spread via email attachments. It caused an estimated $80 million in damage and infected over 1 million computers. The virus was first discovered on March 26th, 1999 and continued to spread until April 9th. Melissa was so destructive because it replicated itself so quickly that it caused servers to crash and shut down.
Klez:
Klez was a computer worm that spread via email attachments. It caused an estimated $80 million in damage and infected over 1 million computers. The worm was first discovered on October 21st, 2001 and continued to spread until November 5th. Klez was so destructive because it not only replicated itself, but also deleted critical files and infected other programs.
SQL Slammer:
SQL Slammer was a computer worm that spread via a security hole in Microsoft SQL Server. It caused an estimated $1 billion in damage and infected over 75,000 computers. The worm was first discovered on January 25th, 2003 and continued to spread until February 2nd. SQL Slammer was so destructive because it caused servers to crash and slow down the Internet.
Blaster:
Blaster was a computer worm that spread via a security hole in Microsoft Windows. It caused an estimated $320 million in damage and infected over 10 million computers. The worm was first discovered on August 11th, 2003 and continued to spread until August 29th. Blaster was so destructive because it not only replicated itself, but also launched a denial of service attack against Microsoft.
SoBig:
SoBig was a computer virus that spread via email attachments. It caused an estimated $37 million in damage and infected over 500,000 computers. The virus was first discovered on August 11th, 2003 and continued to spread until August 25th. SoBig was so destructive because it not only replicated itself, but also deleted important files and emailed itself to everyone in the victim’s address book.
WannaCry:
WannaCry was a computer worm that spread via a security hole in Microsoft Windows. It caused an estimated $4 billion in damage and infected over 230,000 computers. The worm was first discovered on May 12th, 2017 and continued to spread until May 15th. WannaCry was so destructive because it not only encrypted victims’ files, but also demanded a ransom to decrypt them.
NotPetya:
NotPetya was a computer worm that spread via a security hole in Microsoft Windows. It caused an estimated $10 billion in damage and infected over 10,000 computers. The worm was first discovered on June 27th, 2017 and continued to spread until July 4th. NotPetya was so destructive because it not only encrypted victims’ files, but also rendered their computers unusable.
Doomjuice:
Doomjuice was a computer worm that spread via a security hole in Microsoft Windows. It caused an estimated $2.6 million in damage and infected over 100,000 computers. The worm was first discovered on October 28th, 2009 and continued to spread until November 4th. Doomjuice was so destructive because it not only replicated itself, but also launched a denial of service attack against the victim’s computer.
Visit malwarezero.org to learn more about most dangerous computer virus. Disclaimer: We used this website as a reference for this blog post.