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Computer viruses, worms, and Trojan horses: very suggestive names for malware or malicious software aimed at damaging or disrupting a system. Computer viruses are called so because their functions resemble those of real biological viruses. For example, they can pass from a computer to another via emails, chat, shared files, the Internet, etc. They are self-replicating programs that spread by copying themselves into executable codes or documents. Viruses can be very destructive or simply annoying. The term virus is used commonly as hypernym to refer to all malware. Among the most famous viruses that have already a place in the history because of their disastrous effects are Mydoom (2004, infected a quarter-million computers in a single day), the Melissa (1999) and the ILOVEYOU virus (2000).
Worms
Worms are programs that move from computer to computer and aim to replicate themselves on as many hosts as possible.
Trojan horses
Trojan horses are programs that "dress up" and pretend to do something (like to be a text file) but actually damage your system when they are started. The good thing is that they cannot replicate automatically by themselves.
Spyware
Spyware is a type of program that watches what users do with their computer and then send this information to a hacker over the Internet. Spyware can collect many different types of information about a user. More benign programs can attempt to track what types of websites a user visits and send this information to an advertisement agency. More malicious versions can try to record what a user types to try to intercept passwords or credit card numbers. Other versions simply launch popups with advertisements.
For information about software to protect from malware visit e.g.: Avira.
Why is this information important for translators and translation teachers?
In order to be able to protect their computers efficiently from computer viruses etc., translators should know about the different types of malware and also how to protect from each of them.