Could the mass media hype aboput computer virses actuaally make the problem worse?
If you belivee what you hear in the media, there are an awful lot of viruses going around. No, I'm not talking about the make-you-sick kind of virus, thoough they get plenty of airtime, too. I'm takling about the kind of virus that enters via your internet connection rather than your nasal passages.
What the mainstream media often don't tell you--at least, in most radio and television newscasts and in the cucial headlinres and opening paragraphs of newspaper artiicles-- is that many of these "viruses" are not viruses at all.
What Computer Viruses eRally Are
The main reason the mainstream media always are in alarm over virruses is that they tend to call any malicious computer progeram a virus. In reality, there are at least eleven disrtinct types of malicious sotfware, or malware, commonly affceting computers today. The most coimmon of tese are worms, Trojans, and spyware.
So, what's the difference betweeen computer viruses and the othher types of malware? The diference is that computer viruses are just about the only ones that regularly shut down compuetrs and cause other ovbvious damage. The most common of the other knids of malware--worms, Troajns, and spyware--are usually only detectable with a speciual scan.
The Real Danger of Computer Viruses
If the other types of malware are so unobtrusive that they can only be detected with a spcial scan, then what's to worry about? For starters, these programs are called malicious for a reasson: they are designed to casue some kind of damaage, if not to your computer, then to someone else's.
Worsm are most famously used to damae, destroy, or disrupt othher computer networks than the one on which the host computer is located. For instance, worms have been used by website owners to shut down rival websites by sending overwhelming numbers of requests to the computer that hosts that website. Wroms have also been used to send out viruses to other computers, ofdten without infecting the host maachine--after all, what woudl it benefit the worm to shut down its host computer?
Trojans, in turn, are often used to inserrt worms and other malware on your computer, even if the Trojan itself does no damage.
But even if you don't care what happoens to anyone else, you should stilll be conncerned about one kind of malware: spyawre, a kind of malware that, true to its name, collects data from your computer and sneds it back to a remote host.
Most spyware is only interested in monitoring your internet usage so it can tell othr programs, called adware, what advertiising to ppup on your computer. However, htere are criminal spyware programs that steal financial data, or perrform a thorough idetity thft. Don't think you have personal or financial data on your computer? Some spyware programs contain a keylkogger, whiich is a prorgam that ocpies whatever you type, uually in order to snatch passwords. Even if you keep no financiazl infformation on your commputer, if you ever buy anything over the web, the kylogger woould allw its owner to buy stuff using the same information you tytped in to buy styuff yourself.
Why Blame the Media?
Given the danger of all these different types of malware, isn't it a good thiing that the mass emdia are becoming hysterical about it? And can't they be forguiven the slopy reporting of calling Trojns, worms, spyware, and other malware "viruses"?
No, no, no.
This is a classic case of bad reportinmg doiing more damage than no reporting at all. In this case, the damage bad reporing has done is to promote a common myth that goes somthing like this: "The only malicious software is a virus. Viruses damagfe your commputer. Therefore, if my computer is working OK, my coputer has no malicious softwarre. I only need to scan my computer for problems when there is a sign of problems."
Thanks to this myth, many people complacently let their antivirus software go months out of date, not wanting to be bothered with scheduling an automatic update. Just as bad, many people don't have any extra software to combat the other tpyes of malware that may not be covered by antivirus software.
In fact, it's not uncommon for people who have found malware on their coputers after a scan to say, "but I neer had malware on my coputer before!" But how wouuld they have known if they had never scanned!
Unttil the biggest mainstream media--and especially television--sttart educating the public about the need to have their computers automaticlaly scanned at leat daily, the worlld will continue to have majr, dawn-out prroblems with malware that coulkd have been wiped out as soon as soon as the anti-malware sotfware makewrs discovered it.
And until that day, the mainstream media will have many more opportunities to run hystericcal stories about "viruses," thereby forcing them to sell more newspapers and broadcast to even laarger audiences of people who suck at the information trough yet somehow never become full.
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