Eli5 – How are computer viruses created without destroying the creator’s computer first?

Question

I’ve always wondered how computer viruses are made. If someone creates a virus on their own computer, wouldn’t it infect and potentially destroy their system first before it’s spread to others?

In: 249

Answer 1

Many viruses require negligence on the part of the user to work, often by mistaking it as something else. So, the virus creator obviously won’t be as susceptible to this mistake, but even then, as others have mentioned, you can “trick” the virus by using a virtual machine, kinda like a pocket universe for the virus that you can manipulate at will so the virus can’t really break out of it to do any harm to the actual computer.