A few common myths about virus infection

Despite all the information available nowadays, viruses are still misunderstood by most people and, in some cases, even by experts. Let us analize a few situations to help us break some common myths.

Computer hangs up, should I think my computer is infected?

Some times it may happen that a computer infection causes it to stop, but this is very unlikey the virus will, as for a virus is pretty much convenient to have the infected pc working perfectly in order to infect other computers. Most of the times computer hang ups are due to operating system malfunction, hardware incompatibility or registry corruption because of too frequent installing/uninstalling software. If you have an updated antivirus installed and always working as well as an antispyware and a well configured firewall, a virus infection is the last thing to suspect.

My pc has an antivirus installed, is it completely threat safe?

Having an antivirus installed doesn't mean your pc is infection free. If you don't update the virus definition often it may happen that a new virus won't be reconized as a menace for your pc. Also, the real-time control process has to be up and running without interruption. If it is turned off or deactivated a virus can easily enter into your computer. If you have been running your pc prior to install the antivirus it may have catched viruses also if you haven't been connected to the internet. During the installation procedure the antivirus will ask you to do a full scan, if you skip this part of the installation chances are an already installed virus won't be removed from you computer.

My computer is infected, does this mean it is damaged anyway?

Even though most viruses are harmful, some exist only to replicate themselves, others do innocuous things or can cause little trouble. Besides, most viruses activate only after a specific user action (i.e. pressing a key or a set of keys). The first thing to do when an infection is suspected is to remove the threat. Then controlling nothing has been deleted and a registry check up can be a good idea.

Can my hardware be damaged by a virus?

In the vast majority of cases no, though I can't completely exclude that a virus could carry instructions to overload or misuse some hardware. Anyway, this should be considered a very rare case.

Can I increase my protection having more than one antivirus installed?

No. It is sufficient having a good antivirus installed, frequently updated and always running. A second antivirus won't increase your pc protection, while it could cause hang ups.

Source : Goarticles by Andrea Tessi

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