However, the virus must be inside a living cell of some kind before the information can be used. In fact, the information won't be made available unless the virus enters a living cell. It is this entrance of a virus into a cell which is called a viral infection. The virus is very small relative to the size of a living cell. The virus uses the cell's machinery and some of the cell's enzymes to generate virus parts which are later assembled into thousands of new, mature, infectious virus which can leave the cell to infect other cells.
All viruses only exist to make more viruses.
And with the possible exception of bacterial viruses which kill harmful bacteria, all viruses appear to be harmful because their replication leads to the death of the cell which the virus entered. A virus enters a cell by first attaching to a specific structure on the cell's surface via a specific structure on the virus surface. Depending on the virus, either the entire virus enters the cell, or perhaps only the genetic material of the virus is injected into the cell. In either case however, the ultimate result of viral infection is the exposure of virus genetic material inside the entered cell. There is not a living thing identified that doesn't have some sort of susceptibility to a particular virus.