"Difference between human viruses and computer viruses"

Biological Viruses (or Human Viruses) are Nanotechnology by Nature while computer viruses are infectious agent by made by humans. Most often the people think Biological viruses and Computer viruses as a same entity, although both cause infection and damage to their host (or target) and some of their features & characteristics are same but they are quite different from each other. Following table enlists some interesting main difference between Biological Virus and Computer Viruses.

There are some differences i'm going to explain:

1. Living – non living:

Biological VirusBiological viruses are living (at least to some extent) biological entity who can reproduce itself

Computer VirusComputer viruses are non – living at all, they are manmade malicious computer coding which are programmed to perform specific functions

2. Host:

Biological VirusThey are living, thus infects living things. Biological Viruses can infect all form of life including Human, Animals, Plants, Insects, Bacteria, Protozoa, Fungi, Archae and other viruses (Yes, there are some viriophage exist)

Computer VirusThey are programmed, thus made impact on programs (softwares) Computer viruses infect mostly PCs, Servers, websites and software. Computer viruses mostly targets PCs with MS windows Operating system and rarely other Operating System.

3. History:

Biological VirusThe history of Biological virus’s evolution is dated back where the Life begins; they are as old as bacteria (about 2.5 billion year). The first written and proven case of viral infection is depicted on 3700 B.C old ancient painting which shows the case of poliomyelitis.

Computer VirusThe first computer virus was “Creepy” virus which is written (coded) in 1971 by Bob Thomas. This virus remotely spread and copied itself, just show the message “I am creepy, catch me if you can”.

4. Components:

Biological VirusAs a biological entity or living organism, Biological virus contain genetic material (in the form of RNA or DNA), covered by a coat of protein (called Capsid) and sometime by a lipid Envelop

Computer VirusA computer virus is not more than a few lines of code. It contains a script or code of programming language written in C, C++ or other assembly languages.

5. Mechanism of action:

Biological VirusBiological viruses infect their host after they enter the host body and reach inside the cell where the virus uses the host genetic material (DNA or RNA )to replicate and expend their population

Computer VirusComputer viruses, similarly infect computers when they enter and reach the registry (or the specific components/area for which they are programmed) where they cause the damage (usually hiding or disabling some files or functions) .

6. Types:

Biological VirusClassify by many ways, mostly by the body system which the biological virus infect. Their types include Neuroviruses, Enteroviruses, Rhino viruses, Respiratory viruses, etc.

Structurally their classification include RNA viruses and DNA viruses

Computer VirusClassify by the components or subsystem of the host which they infects. Their types includes, system viruses, Macro viruses (infect application e.g.MS Word, MS Outlook) and Boot sector viruses (which target Master Boot Record).

Programmatically their types include .exe viruses, .COM viruses or  a batch files (.bat) virus.

7. Hazards:

Biological VirusThey causes severe damage to the organ or system they involved which may be reversible (as in case of Hepatitis A, Flu) or lifelong irreversible (i.e. Poliomyelitis, Rabies or Hepatitis C viruses)

Computer VirusThey causes damage to the system or component of the PC which they infect and can result in burden on system memory, system crush and permanent lost of a document or a file or other data.

8. Benefits:

Biological VirusBiological viruses to some extent, are helpful and beneficial in the sense that they are being used in gene therapy to introduce therapeutic genetic material to the diseased cell (e.g. in case of cancer)

Computer VirusComputer viruses, till to date, has no any beneficial role. They always cause damage and lost to the system am data.

9. Prevention:

Biological VirusBiological viruses are preventable by getting vaccinated against them. Vaccines (or even some viruses) help our boy to develop immunity against the occurrence or re-occurrence of the same disease again.

Computer VirusWell, there is no such scenario in case of computer viruses, even with having a powerful Antivirus or fire wall on your system, your system may still got infected, as the developer continually write the malicious code and it across networks to get their job done.

10. Treatment:

Biological VirusBiological viruses can be treated to some extent with Antiviral drugs e.g. Acyclovir or you can get symptomatic treatment against them.

Computer VirusComputer viruses can be detect and remove with the help of Antivirus. But still it is unpredictable how much damage they can left or made to the system and some time you need to re-install the operating system