The term virus is frequently used as a catch-all for malicious software, but actually describes a very specific type of program that infects files and replicates, noticeable impairing a computer. But Microsoft has noticed that viruses—which have been present on around 5 percent of the computers the company regularly polls—have increased in prevalence in some regions, wrote Tim Rains, director of the company’s Trustworthy Computing section. In the fourth quarter of last year, viruses were present on about 7.8 percent of computers scanned by the company, he wrote. In some locations, such as Pakistan, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Somalia, Egypt and Afghanistan, the percentage of computers with viruses ranged from 35 to 44 percent, he wrote.