The Difference between a Virus, Worm, and Trojan Horse.
Viruses, Worms, and Trojan Horses are malicious programs that infect your computer and potentially can cause damage or reduced performance to your PC. Here are the differences.
Viruses:
A Virus attaches itself to a file or program that can be spread to other computers, similarly to a human virus. Viruses range in severity from annoyance all the way to computer damage. Viruses need human interaction to be spread, by running the virus, which is usually done unknowingly.
Worms:
Worms are very similar to viruses, but unlike a virus a worm does not need human interaction to spread to other PCs. Worms use the computers transport features to spread. The biggest danger with worms is that, since they don't need human interaction they can potentially spread to hundreds or thousands of other PCs without the users knowledge.
Trojan Horses:
Trojan Horses use trickery to gain access to your system. Usually this is done by tricking the user to click on something that will run the Trojan Horse. Once on the PC, the range in severity could be as simple as changing home pages, desktops or deleting files. But some create a back door to your system, so the creator can gain access and steal data or worse.
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