What is spam and virus?

Question

What is spam and virus.s and why do people send them? and what happens when you get one?

Answer 1

Spam is unsolicted email that is sent in bulk. Usually it is done for monetary gains.
Viruses are very similar to biological viruses. They take advantage of a weakness in the code of the Operating System to cause problems in the OS and spread. It's usually done just to create wide spread problems and is typically created by people that just like to cause trouble for regular people.

All you can do with Spam is create filters to get rid of it. With viruses, typically the computer must be cleaned of the virus and then patched to make sure that it won't be reinfected.

Answer 2

Spam is a form of pork luncheon meat that you can put in a sandwich or use as the focal point of a salad and Virus is something you catch that makes you really sick - like flu. Seriously, "spam" is simply junk e-mail in the sense that you don't want it and it is usually trying to see you something - perhaps even something you could get free elsewhere. A computer virus is a deadly serious infection that can have tremendously adverse affect on your computer perhaps even leading to a total failure. A virus is commonly concealed within something else that appears innocent and interesting. Do not open e-mail attachments if you do not know the person who sent it.

Answer 3

SPAM are generaly unwishable messages (it could be marketing advertisement but and some dangerous message). Abuout SPAM mainly take care your provider (portal, server, mailer) but you have to define what is SPAM (in gmail for example first message you mark as UNWISHABLE and after that all messages that comes from this adress will be registered as SPAM). VIRUS is small program wich create confusion in your PC up to that make him invalid for use. Some anti-virus programs are installed on hard disk while you install for example windows, but there are lot of anti-virus programs for added installation. Why some peoples do that? Look, here in Croatia we got an old folk parolle: Unemployed priest and sheeps christening! And this parolle explain everything. Best Regards and veradisca! Neven.

Answer 4

SPAM is just junk mail. Harmless, but a pain in the neck. It's like getting a load of junk regular mail which you check out just in case something first class got mixed up in it.

Virus - just what it implies. It can be harmless - requiring a fix, or it can render your computer useless. Worst case scenario, it can steal your personal information.

You should have a good antivirus program and keep it updated regularly. Be aware that no firewall or antivirus program can totally prevent you from getting into trouble. Be careful what you click, don't take stupid chances, open e-mail only from those known to you - in other words, be careful and use your common sense.

Answer 5

Spam is unsolicited emails and viruses are programs that run in the background on your PC doing various nasty things like for example deleting files, and generally messing up your PC. a spam guard simply moves suspected spam mail to a different folder so you don't have to trawl through rubbish to read your genuine mail. ant-virus checks your PC for virus infected files and removes/quarantines them rendering them inert.

Answer 6

"SPAM" mail is the practice of sending massive amounts of e-mail promotions or advertisements (and scams) to people that have not asked for it.

"A COMPUTER VIRUS" is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer without permission or knowledge of the user.

"PEOPLE SEND THEM" because they...well...dunno really, see thats an interesting question...I'll think about it and tell U later.

P.S. Yes, I did copy and paste this from another site, except for the 'why do people send them' part.

Answer 7

Spam is just garbage to try and get money out of you. Virus' are actually small programs created to do any sort of ill effect it's author created it to do. They can crash your machine,steal passwords and credit information,turn your machine into a mail "bot",etc,etc. Help? ;-)=

Answer 8

spam is advertising. virus is the same as a human body virus it makes your computer sick

Answer 9

Electronic junk mail or junk newsgroup postings. Some people define spam even more generally as any unsolicited e-mail. However, if a long-lost brother finds your e-mail address and sends you a message, this could hardly be called spam, even though it's unsolicited. Real spam is generally e-mail advertising for some product sent to a mailing list or newsgroup.
In addition to wasting people's time with unwanted e-mail, spam also eats up a lot of network bandwidth. Consequently, there are many organizations, as well as individuals, who have taken it upon themselves to fight spam with a variety of techniques. But because the Internet is public, there is really little that can be done to prevent spam, just as it is impossible to prevent junk mail. However, some online services have instituted policies to prevent spammers from spamming their subscribers.

There is some debate about the source of the term, but the generally accepted version is that it comes from the Monty Python song, "Spam spam spam spam, spam spam spam spam, lovely spam, wonderful spam…" Like the song, spam is an endless repetition of worthless text. Another school of thought maintains that it comes from the computer group lab at the University of Southern California who gave it the name because it has many of the same characteristics as the lunchmeat Spam:

Nobody wants it or ever asks for it.
No one ever eats it; it is the first item to be pushed to the side when eating the entree.
Sometimes it is actually tasty, like 1% of junk mail that is really useful to some people.

A computer virus is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer without permission or knowledge of the user. The virus may also be purposly planted in order to cause confsi The original may modify the copies or the copies may modify themselves, as occurs in a metamorphic virus. A virus can only spread from one computer to another when its host is taken to the uninfected computer, for instance by a user sending it over a network or carrying it on a removable medium such as a floppy disk, CD, or USB drive. Additionally, viruses can spread to other computers by infecting files on a network file system or a file system that is accessed by another computer. Viruses are sometimes confused with computer worms and Trojan horses. A worm, however, can spread itself to other computers without needing to be transferred as part of a host. A Trojan horse is a file that appears harmless until executed. In contrast to viruses, Trojan horses do not insert their code into other computer files. Many personal computers are now connected to the Internet and to local-area networks, facilitating their spread. Today's viruses may also take advantage of network services such as the World Wide Web, e-mail, and file sharing systems to spread, blurring the line between viruses and worms. Furthermore, some sources use an alternative terminology in which a virus is any form of self-replicating malware.

The term comes from the term virus in biology. A computer virus reproduces by making, possibly modified, copies of itself in the computer's memory, storage, or over a network. This is similar to the way a biological virus works.

Some viruses are programmed to damage the computer by damaging programs, deleting files, or reformatting the hard disk. Others are not designed to do any damage, but simply replicate themselves and perhaps make their presence known by presenting text, video, or audio messages. Even these benign viruses can create problems for the computer user. They typically take up computer memory used by legitimate programs. As a result, they often cause erratic behavior and can result in system crashes. In addition, many viruses are bug-ridden, and these bugs may lead to system crashes and data loss.

There are many viruses operating in the general Internet today, and new ones are discovered every day




Viruses
Boot Sector Virus
A Virus that infects the first part, called a sector, of your hard drive. This first sector is called the boot sector and it is what your computer uses to start. A boot sector can also be on a floppy disk, if you use a floppy to boot your computer.

This Virus can stop your computer from booting and can eventually infect your hard drive causing it to reformat itself. This can cause total loss of information on your hard drive.

Program Virus
These are exactable files that can infect the programs on your computer. These Viruses can continue to spread to other programs and render these programs unusable.

Macro Virus
These Viruses infect Document, Data, files. If you use Macros in your documents you're at risk for this most common Virus. It can erase or destroy your data