Getting Virus From .zip File: How?
Here’s how to get a virus from a .zip file: For the most part, you can get a virus from a .zip file when you unzip it after downloading it or otherwise putting it on your computer. Some viruses won’t activate until after you run their installer. Other malicious software will work in much the same way, meaning zipped folders are usually fine until you unzip them. So if you want to learn all about how a .zip file can give your computer a virus, then this article is for you. Let’s jump right into it! What Is a .zip File? (2 Functions) Before I can reasonably explain how you might get a virus from a .zip file, I need to explain what a .zip file is and how it works. The short answer is that a .zip file is any file made using the ZIP archiving format. Of course, that answer brings up as many questions as it does explanations, so let’s really get into this for a moment. Archiving formats are very useful things for computers. Essentially they are extremely specific sets of instructions that dictate how a file is organized. By keeping the file organization so strict, an archiving format basically makes it so that every file made using the format follows a specific blueprint. This blueprint allows the archiving format to actually reconstruct lost data when a file is missing pieces of its own information. It’s kind of like how you can figure out where all of the bedrooms are supposed to be in a house once it is framed. The walls aren’t all there, but because houses are mostly framed using the same rules, you can figure out how the house is organized. Archiving formats do this but on the scale of computerized precision. The point of all of this is that archiving formats allow for the compression of files. I’ll explain more about this
