Every year when the Italian artist Michelangelo's (1475-15, 意大利文艺复兴时期著名雕刻家、画家、
建筑师) birthday comes around, computer users all over the world are filled with fear (害怕) and use their
computers with care. Some may even choose not to turn on their computers on March 3. All this fear and care
are just because a deadly computer virus is ready to cause damages (破坏) on that day.
What's a computer virus then? Why do people get so afraid of it?
A computer virus is, in fact, a little program that is put into other programs and that does something bad.
It is called a virus because, like any real-life viruses such as virus, it reproduces itself. And when these
programs are run, the virus is brought to life. It hides itself in your computer system waiting for the right
moment to make damages. And at the same time it keeps producing itself by copying itself onto other programs.
The Michelangelo virus waits until the artist's birthday comes around, and then it will wake up to do very
bad things like destroying you files (毁坏文档). So next time when you turn on your computer, look out for
computer viruses!