Viruses can be broadly defined as man-made pieces of code that load and run in your computer without permission. The common types of viruses make copies of themselves repeatedly till they use up all your computer memory, leaving the system super slow or bringing it to a complete standstill. At McAfee mobile security, we have seen some harmless viruses though the malicious ones are very common. They destroy data, first attack one device and then spread on more using the same network and adapt different stealthy strategies to stay from being detected.

There are many other variants of malware like Trojans, worms, spyware, adware, botsand ransomware. They all cause much grievances to people using the internet. On today’s post we cover only the various types of malware that pose a threat to the safety of your laptop, desktop, mobile and other connected devices.

The different types of viruses

File infecting virus- The most common type, this kind of virus generally infect files with .com or .exe extensions. Once it accesses a certain file, the virus overwrites it, in parts or completely. At McAfee antivirus customer service, we have often seen such virus spread to other devices in the network. Some of them are even capable of reformatting a hard drive.

Macro virus – These are written in programming language that remains embedded in some software application. Any of these applications can allow macros to run on its own after a document is opened. This is how micro viruses can spread further. They often spread through networks, emails attachments, internet and removable media, replacing normal macros with a virus. They run on operating systems because they are application based.

Master boot record viruses – There was once a time when bootkits were frequently used to spread viruses via floppies. These are programs that can change the Master Boot Record that has location of all partitions in a hard drive. Their advanced versions, available now can disable all security software instantly. Call our technicians to find out how to activate McAfee antivirus so that it can effectively scan your devices and detect any potential threat.

Boot sector viruses – When a disk is read, it first seeks the MBR. After that it lets the boot sector provide relevant information on what is located in the disk and in its location. If user leaves media in some drive by mistake, boot sector virus is known to commonly spread via DVDs, CDs, and pen drives. What happens the next time the device is turned on is that the virus loads instantly and runs as if it is a part of the MBR. It can also spread through email attachments where it can use our contact lists to spread itself further to the devices of all our contacts.

Multipartite viruses – Do your McAfee subscription renewal timely to protect your devices against these viruses that are quick to spread via diverse methods. If we compare, you will find them graver than either file viruses, boot infectors, PC BIOS boot sector virus code or DOS executable files.

There are also polymorphic viruses, that infect via code encryption and stealth viruses that are built to hide especially from antivirus software. They work to infect the boot sector and it is interesting to note, that once detected they are pretty easy to remove.

Thus we recommend all our clients to keep updating their antiviruson regular intervals to protect their devices and data from a varied range of malware and hacking attacks. Our McAfee support is always there to help you with instant technical resolutions of any kind.