COMPUTER VIRUS
A virus is a type of program that can replicate itself by making copies of itself, which can be possibly modified. The main criterion for classifying a piece of executable code as a virus is that it spreads itself by means of ‘hosts’. A virus can only spread from one computer to another when its host is taken to the uninfected computer, for instance by a user sending it over a network or carrying it on a removable medium. Additionally, viruses can spread to other computers by infecting files on a network file system or a file system that is accessed by another computer.
a computer virus is a self-replicating or self-reproducing-automation computer program that spreads by inserting copies of itself into other executable code or documents.
A computer virus behaves in a way similar to a biological virus, which spreads by inserting itself into living cells. Extending the analogy, the insertion of a virus into the program is termed as an “infection”, and the infected file, or executable code that is not part of a file, is called a “host”. Viruses are one of the several types of malicious software or malware. In a common parlance, the term virus is often extended to refer to worms, trojan horses and other sorts of malware; however, this can confuse computer users, since viruses in the narrow sense of the word are less common than they used to be, compared to other forms of malware. This confusion can have serious consequences, because it may lead to a focus on preventing one genre of malware over another, potentially leaving computers vulnerable to future damage. However, a basic rule is that computer viruses cannot directly damage hardware, but only software