A stealth virus hides itself after infecting a computer and is difficult to detect during a virus scan. It can spread through malicious programs, email attachments, and websites. The virus creates a copy of the original system image to avoid detection and can reinstall itself after being eliminated.
A stealth virus is a type of computer virus that effectively hides itself, hence the name, once it has infected a computer system. This type of virus can usually be spread by the same means as any other virus, via malicious programs, email attachments, and installations done through various websites with malicious programming. Once installed on a computer, it becomes very difficult for an antivirus program to detect and eliminate it during a virus scan. A stealth virus typically makes a copy of the original, uninfected data on a drive so that it can pass this information to an antivirus program during a virus scan.
Although many different types of viruses use different methods to stay hidden before installing, a stealth virus is programmed not to be detected once installed on a computer. There are several ways a virus can become difficult to remove properly and completely from a system after infection, and an invisible virus uses the system itself to hide its presence. Most viruses, once installed on a computer system, begin to corrupt and take control of various aspects of the system and then perform a variety of malicious activities on the system. This action is what makes the virus detectable, because an antivirus program can find where changes have been made.
An invisible virus, however, actively works to hide the changes that have been made to make virus detection much more difficult. There are several ways this can be accomplished, and the developer of a virus usually decides which approach to use. One of the most common ways to create an invisible virus is to program the virus to create a copy of the original system image prior to infection. This image is then used when the system is recalled so that antivirus programs only “see” the original system and not the infected version.
There are several ways to get around a stealth virus’ deception, including booting from a disk before a virus scan to avoid systems that the virus has control over. A stealth virus also has the potential to avoid deletion by an antivirus program by making a copy of itself on your hard drive and hiding that copy from detection. After a virus scan has been performed and the virus has been detected and eliminated, the virus will reinstall itself the next time you start your computer. This can make it difficult to detect the virus correctly and usually requires more up-to-date antivirus software programmed to find the hidden copy as well.
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