Malicious software may be in the form of a virus, adware or spyware.
What is a Virus? Computer viruses are small software programs that are designed to spread from one computer to another and to interfere with computer operation. A virus might corrupt or delete data on your computer, use your e-mail program to spread itself to other computers, or even erase everything on your hard disk.
Viruses are most easily spread by attachments in e-mail messages or instant messaging messages. That is why it is essential that you never open e-mail attachments unless you know who it's from and you are expecting it.
Viruses can be disguised as attachments of funny images, greeting cards, or audio and video files. Viruses also spread through downloads on the Internet. They can be hidden in illicit software or other files or programs you might download.
What is Adware? Adware is a close relative of spyware. Adware is software that is installed on your computer to show you advertisements.
Adware can slow your PC by using RAM and CPU cycles. Adware can also slow your Internet connection by using bandwidth to retrieve advertisements. In addition, adware can increase the instability of your system because many adware applications are not programmed well.
In addition, adware can annoy you and waste huge amounts of your time by popping unwanted ads onto your screen, which require you to close them before you can get back to using your PC.
What is Spyware? This is software that secretly gathers information about a user while he/she navigates the Internet. This information is normally used for advertising purposes. Spyware can also gather information about email addresses and even passwords and credit card numbers.
How do I know if I have a virus, adware or spyware?
Spyware could be part of a computer virus. And, even though you may remove the virus or fix the problems it caused, the spyware remains on the computer, collecting data and reporting back to parties interested in stealing information.
Clues that you may have spyware:
· Slow Internet connection
· Excessive amount of annoying pop-up windows
· Computer crashes
· Identity theft
Potentially all computers connected to the Internet are vulnerable to malicious software if not correctly protected. Our team of technicians can take the risk out of Internet surfing by neutralising these threats and preventing any future infections.
"Thanks guys for doing a great job in cleaning my PC...The computer was running so slow ...and we didn't know a virus had caused the problem... The machine is running great now" - Sam F, Windsor, NSW 
