How many times has your computer crashed? For many of us it's probably more times than we would have liked. Even with years of research and advancement in the field of operating systems one would be lead to think that someone would have gotten the ease of use/functionality formula figured out by now. Unfortunately, no company has the all-purpose answer right now and while there are many reasons for this I"ll be discussing one in particular, viruses, with a particular focus on the need for anti-virus software. .
The best place to begin would be to define the two sides of the coin here, the virus and the ant-virus. In my research on the topic I found a rather succinct definition that describes a virus as a file that holds "capability to produce copies of itself (not exact bytewise replicas) and to incorporate them into computer networks and/or files, system areas of computers, and other executable objects. In addition to this, copies also maintain the capability to spread further." This is a definition that is very similar to one that could describe a biological virus, thus validating the modern day moniker. The definition for an anti-virus would be a program that holds the ability to recognize, delete, or otherwise halt the spread of any computer virus. Even though defining these terms gives a basic grasp of the concept one is missing out on the dynamics of both through the inability to see either in action. Therefore, an example is in order.
W32.Blaster.Worm. Length of infection: 6,176 bytes. (Symantec Oct. 8).
W32/Swen@MM. Length: 106,496 bytes. (McAfee Oct. 13).
To the untrained eye, these seem to be rather meaningless terms in general. However, with research one could find out that these are two of the most infectious and easily spread viruses in recent computing history. These two viruses also have led many a support technician to a long line of users awaiting help. Both of these two viruses are single-handedly capable of bringing a Windows-based machine to its digital knees.