If you believe what you hear in the media, there are a lot of virus circulating. No, I'm not talking about the kind you-sick of the virus, despite getting plenty of airtime, too. I'm talking about the type of virus that enters via your internet connection instead of the nostrils.

What the media often do not tell you - at least in most radio and television newscasts and headlines crucial paragraphs of newspaper articles - is that many of these "viruses" are viruses all.

What Computer Viruses Really

The main reason the media are always on alert for the virus, they tend to call any malicious computer program a virus. In fact, there are at least eleven different types of malicious software or malware, commonly affecting computers today. The most common of these are worms, Trojans and spyware.

So, what is the difference between computer viruses and other malware? The difference is that computer viruses are almost the only ones that regularly shut down computers and cause obvious damage. The most common other types of malware - worms, trojans and spyware - are usually only detectable by a special examination.

The real danger of computer viruses

If other types of malware are so unobtrusive that it can only be detected by a special examination, then what's to worry? For starters, these programs are called malicious for a reason: they are designed to cause any harm, if not with the team, then to another person.

Worms are the most famous used to damage, destroy or disrupt other computer networks than that in which is the host team. For example, worms have been used by website owners to shut down rival websites by sending overwhelming numbers of applications for the computer hosting the website. Worms have also been used to send viruses to other computers, often without infecting the host machine - after all, what would benefit the worms to shut down its host computer?

Trojans, in turn, is often used to insert worms and other malware on your computer, even if the Trojan itself does no harm.

But even if you do not care what happens to anyone else, you should be concerned about a type of malware: spyware, a type of malware that, true to its name, collects data from your computer and sends it back to a distance host.

Most spyware is only interested in monitoring your internet usage so it can be said of other programs, called adware, what advertising to popup on your computer. However, there are criminal spyware programs that steal financial data, or perform a thorough identity theft. Do not think you have personal or financial data on your computer? Some spyware programs contain a keylogger, a program that copies what you write, usually in order to snatch passwords. Even if you keep any financial information on your computer, if you buy something on the web, the keylogger will allow the holder to buy things with the same information you entered to buy things for yourself.

Why blame the media?

Faced with the danger of all these different types of malware, not a good thing that the media are becoming hysterical about it? And they can be forgiven the sloppy reporting of known Trojans, worms, spyware and other malware "viruses"?

No, no, no.

This is a classic case of bad reporting doing more damage than no information at all. In this case, the information has been badly damaged is to promote a common myth that goes something like this: "The only malicious software is a virus damage your computer virus so if my computer is working fine, my computer has no malicious. . software. I have only to scan my computer for problems when there is a sign of trouble. "

Thanks to this myth, many people with pleasure that the antivirus software go months of the date, not wanting to be bothered with scheduling an automatic update. Just as bad, many people have no additional software to combat other types of malware that can not be covered by antivirus software.

In fact, it is not uncommon for people who have found malware on their computers after a scan to say, but I never had malware on your computer before! " But how can we not have known if it had scanned!

Even the largest media mainstream - and especially television - start educating the public about the need to have their computers automatically scanned at least once a day, the world still have significant problems with malware dilated may have been removed as soon as soon as manufacturers of software anti-malware discovered.

And until that day, the media will have many opportunities to run hysterical stories about "viruses", which forced to sell more newspapers and broadcast to an even broader audience of people who suck in the information channel but somehow never so full.