Hybrid Virus

After establishing itself, a hybrid virus may attack and infect specific program files or sectors in an operating system. This type of virus is often difficult to contain. If it is not completely eliminated, it will typically reinfect the computer repeatedly. Viruses typically fall into one of three categories: macro viruses, program infectors (also known as file infectors) or system/boot infectors. Macro viruses are rather common and usually not as harmful as other infections. They mostly infect word processing files in which it may insert unwanted text or phrases. A hybrid virus combines the methods of program and system infectors to increase the amount of damage and stubbornest towards removal. A hybrid virus attacks EXE. (executable) files on a hard drive. Each time the file is run, a user unknowingly initiates the virus, unleashing it’s payload into the system. It may also infect executable codes located in certain areas of a disk drive, mainly the portion that instructs the computer how to boot up. This will initiate the virus each time the computer is turned on.