text: what are virus?   in computer security technology, a virus is a self-replicating 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.   in the context of computer software, a trojan horse is a malicious program that is disguised as legitimate software. the term is derived from the classical myth of the trojan horse. in the siege of troy, the greeks left a large wooden horse outside the city. the trojans were convinced that it was a gift, and moved the horse to a place within the city walls. it turned out that the horse was hollow, containing greek soldiers who opened the city gates of troy at night, making it possible for the greek army to pillage the city. trojan horse programs work in a similar way: they may look useful or interesting (or at the very least harmless) to an unsuspecting user, but are actually harmful when executed.  a computer worm is a self-replicating computer program, similar to a computer virus. a virus attaches itself to, and becomes part of, another executable program; however, a worm is self-contained and does not need to be part of another program to propagate itself.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/computer_virus