The computer world has faced a lot of challenges right from its dawn, including the Millennium Bug which tested its ultimate survival of how long it will last for techies to use or develop. The Internet today is considered a necessity for people in terms of communications, research, education, and entertainment.

What will happen if one day this kind of fun is gone or terminated? Would it be like going back to the Stone Age? A return to snail mail again? More land line phones to meet new people? How about accessing the latest news from your favourite artist?

Cybergeddon is humanity's battle against a large-scale viral assault on all computer networks, systems, and activities. The threat of growing population of tech literates versus tech experts is a factor to the growth of sophisticated hacking programmes and mechanisms used by malicious perpetrators. This may sound threatening but even though it is possible to happen, experts are also doing everything they can to prevent a global crisis like this.

For consumers, the basic information for this kind of things is really in your laptop or desktop or even tablets, in reference to the knowledge of virus and malicious software which are basis for penetrating system securities.

A malicious software or malwares is used to corrupt or create a disruption among computer systems including firewall and securities. It includes computer viruses, worms, Trojan horses (which are very difficult to kill), spywares, adware and a lot more. Antivirus programmes are available for use to prevent these malwares from penetrating computer systems, which makes it a must especially for Internet users. That makes updating them necessary since there no software is 100 per cent perfect for security.

Prevention

Having antivirus programmes can prevent viruses and malwares to disrupt the computer. These programmes prevent devices from hanging, rebooting, or not even booting up to the OS like Windows because it is difficult to recover them including important files, downloaded music, photos, and videos, and the OS itself.

Other prevention, computer owners must be aware of their connectivity to determine the kind of malware needed. Know the Bluetooth connection used. Infrared connection, if still available, should be checked during file transfer making sure that the host isn't contaminated by malwares. Wi-Fi is not only limited to internet use but also for file transfer, so check this as well.

Hardware connections like disks, CDs and USB Flash drive can also bring bad programmes inside devices.

Recovery

In case viruses have affected your device there are ways to recover the system against malwares and viruses.

1. By using antivirus software, you can full scan the entire computer, including external hard drives and disinfect them so that all data can be cleaned of viruses. However, the scenario may differ depending on the contamination level and what kind of malware is inside. Some data may be removed together with the virus. Prevention is still better than this.

2. System Restore is a good choice every now and then whenever the computer is at its safe condition. This feature of Windows may restore the computer to a specific date the owner has set to reset the registry and other things to the former state.

3. Backing up also gives a heads up just in case restoring the system doesn't work. It removes the need to obtain again your important files. Having a copy is a great thing especially if the owner has a lot of extra drives.

4. Formatting involves reinstalling the operating system. This method erases everything in the device, good or bad programmes included. Formatting provides the computer owner with a clean slate by securing everything for the device.

A quick reminder: Not all hang ups or reboot problems are caused by malwares. Some of them are caused by too many programmes contradicting each other, missing programmes the OS looks for during boot up, or even hardware problems can prevent the system from booting. In this case, a technician is required if the computer owner is not knowledgeable enough with computer systems.

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