Understanding Viruses

If you have Spy Sweeper with AntiVirus, your computer has protection against viruses, as well as potentially unwanted programs.

Viruses come in many forms and may or may not do damage to your computer. Typically, viruses get installed on your computer without you realizing it. They may be embedded in an e-mail message, file, or Web page. The following information is not meant to be a complete discussion of all virus issues. We hope that it will acquaint you with some of the virus issues that Spy Sweeper with AntiVirus can address for you.

A virus is computer code that often duplicates itself on other computers on your network and causes some event to occur. The event may be something harmless, such as displaying a message on a specific date, or may be something malicious, such as deleting data or duplicating data to fill a hard drive.

Viruses arrive as file attachments to e-mail, embedded in files on a diskette or CD, as a clickable graphic in an e-mail, and other ways. Virus creators constantly find new ways to distribute viruses by exploiting weaknesses in various programs and creatively duplicating themselves by using your e-mail address book or attaching themselves to legitimate files. Once on your hard drive, viruses go to work. Viruses are difficult to detect and remove, unless you have specialized antivirus software.

Webroot Spy Sweeper with AntiVirus can detect viruses in files as you open, move, or copy them. You can also sweep a file, folder, removable disk, or hard drive periodically to find and remove viruses.