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The threat of computer viruses continues to grow as fast as the pace of advancing technology. While twelve years ago experts were aware of only four viruses, today estimates on the number of electronic viruses in existence range from 16,000-20,000 (Davy 16). Today, there are different classes and types of viruses, each with their own method of operation and level of destruction. Viruses can be benign or malignant. When they are benign they are relatively harmless and cause annoying symptoms such as slow performance, the display of “prank” messages, and other relatively harmless affects. When they are malignant, however, they can do a great deal of damage like destroying files or causing entire computer systems to crash. Traditionally, viruses work by adhering to executable files or the boot sector of a computer disk. However, like human viruses, electronic or computer viruses also represent information disorder. Human viruses fool the machinery of a living cell into replicating more copies of the invading virus. Computer or electronic viruses affect computers and computer systems in a similar manner, “Like its biological counterpart, a computer virus carries in its instructional code the recipe for making perfect copies of itself. Lodged in a host computer, the typical virus takes temporary control of the computer’s disk operating system. Then, whenever the infected computer comes in contact with an uninfected piece of software, a fresh copy of the virus passes into the new program. Thus the infection can be spread from computer to computer by unsuspecting users who either swap disks or send programs to one another over telephone lines” (Elmer-DeWitt 2).
Thousands of different kinds of viruses exist and have been detected with many more entering the electronic world on a daily basis. However, for all the different viruses that exist, they can be group into categories that are classified by the way the...