Contents

• Abstract
• Introduction
• What is a virus?
• What is what?
• The life cycle of a virus
• Response of the host
• Response of the virus
• Hygiene
• Immunity has cost
• Immunity has risks
• Allergic reactions
• Hoaxes and Auto-Immunity
• Similarities
• How virulence evolves
• Nimda
• History

Description

Computer viruses are a human invention. Nevertheless does their evolution follow routes similar to biological diseases.
• relatively harmless ancestors gradually or step-wise evolve into virulent 'pathogens'
• simultaneously enforced defense mechanisms of the host evolve
• successful strategies are reused and combined
• this in turn solicits new virus 'variants' and 'strains'
Eventually equilibrium will result in which the cost of infection is limited to an acceptable level by the host. Comparing cyberspace "microbes" with their biological counterparts is beneficial to the combat of both.