Virus –like programs appeared on microcomputers in the 1980s. As more people learned the art of computer science, more people started to gain expertise in this specialized field. The first viruses on microcomputers were written on the Apple-II, circa 1982.
In 1984, mathematician Dr. Fredrick Cohen introduced the term computer virus, thereby becoming the father’ of computer virus with his studies of them.
Virus is the more popular term but, technically, a virus is a program code that cannot work without being inserted into another program.
It is malware that when executed, tries to replicate itself into other executable code when it succeeds, the code is aid to be infected.
The infected code, when run, can infect new code in turn. This self-replication into existing executable code is the key defining characteristics of a virus.
Antivirus programs often detect common viruses. Some hackers are able to design the pattern of a virus in such a stealthy and modernized manner that it can easily bypass the antivirus program and infect the computer system.
Definition of computer virus
