Method of Infection

Additional Information

1.

You can be infected if the operating system on your computer has a “security vulnerability.”

All operating systems are designed to keep outsiders from gaining control of your computer, but software errors happen. About 90% of all computers run some version of Microsoft Windows. As a result, hackers spend a lot of their time trying to find problems with the Windows code that they can exploit to gain access to your computer. This is the method that worms use to propagate themselves from computer to computer. Microsoft provides “patches” to fix these vulnerabilities when they occur, but it is up to you to install all the patches on your computer.

2.

You can be infected by accidentally installing the virus, adware, or malware on your computer yourself.

This is most likely to happen when you receive an infected file from a friend by email or instant message and you open the file.  Or it may happen when you visit a web site which tricks you into downloading and opening an infected file.