Malicious mischief is the intentional use of the computer to cause harm, inconvenience or confusion. The line that separates a simple prank from malicious mischief is very thin. Because individuals can easily hide their true purposes as well as their identities on the internet, all internet users must remember that the authenticity and accuracy of postings should always be questioned. Viruses are deviant forms of programs that can cause problems ranging from inconvenience to destruction. Because they usually spread by attaching themselves to other programs or files, most computers are infected via an infected diskette or file downloaded over a network.
Worms replicate themselves in a computer's main memory.
By traveling across the internet from one computer to another, they take over computers by taking up all their main memory. Logic bombs are virus programs that are set to activate at a certain time or date. Trojan horses conceal destructive instructions inside the code of legitimate programs so that running a program will cause the destructive code to be executed while the original program is also being executed. Polymorphic viruses are simply viruses that are able to mutate and change form while still maintaining their destructive capabilities. They are particularly harmful because it is harder for antivirus software to find and eradicate them.