Most viruses attach themselves to executable files, but some can target a master boot record, autorun scripts, MS Office macros, Many of these viruses are designed to render your PC completely inoperable, while others simply delete or corrupt your files—the general point is that a virus is designed to cause havoc and break stuff.

Obviously, yanking out a drive while it's being written to could corrupt the data. However, even if the drive isn't actively being written to, you could still corrupt the data. By default, most operating systems use what's called write caching to get better performance out of your computer. When you write a file to another drive—like a flash drive—the OS waits to actually perform those actions until it has a number of requests to fulfill, and then it fulfills them all at once (this is more common when writing small files). When you hit that eject button, it tells your OS to flush the cache—that is, make sure all pending actions have been performed—so you can safely unplug the drive without any data corruption.

Privacy is dead, right? Facebook knows everything about you, and the world is still turning. Whether you don't mind companies knowing all about your private life or still feel completely uneasy at the idea, we often gloss over exactly why your personal data is worth protecting.

Some spam is obvious (“I lost 30 pounds and made $24356 in five hours by taking this special pill!”), but other messages are more subtle. A lot of spam relies oh “phishing,” in which a spammer will try to make their email look like it’s coming from a legitimate source in order to get your information. They may tell you to click a link that looks like it’s going to paypal.com, but if you hover over it, you’ll see that it’s really going somewhere else—likely a PayPal-disguised site where you willingly type in your information.

Most of us put a lot of effort into finding free Wi-Fi, but public Wi-Fi networks have their own share of problems—particularly that it’s very insecure. Even if a Wi-Fi network has a password, other people on the network could see what you’re doing, or—if they were so inclinded—steal personal information and passwords. Luckily, there’s a lot you can do to stay safe: make sure sharing is turned off, use HTTPS whenever possible, and run your traffic through a VPN.