You are evaluating a popular antivirus product for a custome

You are evaluating a popular antivirus product for a customer’s home computer. Of the following, what threats do you tell her that her computer will be protected from by the antivirus application? (Choose three.)

A. Viruses

B. Trojans

C. Worms

D. Spam

Solution

A, B, and C. Most antivirus programs created for home computer use will detect and block known viruses, Trojans, and worms but will not be able to protect the customer from receiving e-mail spam. Usually, an upgrade to the vendor’s “Internet security” product will offer spam protection. In general, a computer virus is a malicious program that can infect a computer, make copies of itself, and infect other computers, doing some kind of damage to the operating system or applications on the computer. A Trojan is a specific type of malicious software that initially appears as a desirable or useful type of application but then, once it’s on your computer, runs and harms your computer’s software. A worm is a self-replicating type of malicious software that is specifically designed to take advantage of a vulnerability on a computer to invade the system and then do damage. Worms almost always cause at least some harm to the network, if only by consuming bandwidth, whereas viruses almost always corrupt or modify files on a targeted computer.