368 ◾ Computational Thinking for the Modern Problem Solver
impacts a particular type of computer system or a particular application
program. So computers using dierent systems or dierent programs will
not be impacted by such specic attacks.
e most eective mitigation for viruses is probably antivirus soware.
An antivirus program executes on your computer and checks certain les
or received data for potential viruses. ese checks can occur automati-
cally in the case of receipt of an e-mail attachment or manually when the
user requests that les be scanned for viruses.
It may sound like antivirus soware is similar to a rewall, and it
is in the sense that both make use of lists to look for attacks. However,
the lists used by antiv ...