It's Contagious"Traces of the Stealth_c virus have been found in memory. Reboot to a clean system disk before continuing with this installation." That was the message staring back at me from one of the computer screens in my office. Questions ran through my mind. “Stealth_c?” » "What is a system disk?" “How am I supposed to install antivirus software if the computer system is already infected with a virus?” As a disheartening feeling of helplessness came over me, I thought about all the people who had loaded something from a disk onto that box or used that box to access the Internet. Since there was no antivirus protection, it was going to be very difficult to determine how many floppies and hard drives had been infected. I wish I knew about computer viruses a long time ago. By the way, what is a computer virus? Is it a computer with a cold? A computer "virus" is called a virus because of three distinct similarities to a biological virus. They are: ? They must have the ability to make copies or reproduce. ? They must need a "host" or working program that they can attach to. ? The virus must cause damage to the computer system or at least cause unexpected or unwanted behavior. Sometimes computer viruses simply consume memory or display annoying messages, but the most dangerous ones can destroy data, give false information, or completely freeze a computer. The Stealth_c virus is a boot sector virus, which means that it resides in the boot sectors of a computer disk and loads into memory along with normal startup programs. The “stealth” nature of the name comes from the ability of this virus to possibly hide from antivirus software. Virtually any media that can contain computer data can contain a virus. Computer viruses are usually spread via data disks, but can be downloaded from the Internet, private bulletin boards, or a local network. This makes it extremely easy for a virus to spread once it has infected a system. The aforementioned Stealth_c virus was transported by the least likely route; it came with commercial software. This is an extremely rare phenomenon, as most software companies go to great lengths to provide "clean" software. There is enormous commercial interest in keeping computers virus-free. Businesses stand to lose literally thousands of dollars if they lose computer data to a virus. Considerable time can be lost from more productive efforts if someone has to check or clean every computer.