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

You wouldn’t do it on your own daily driver. You would either spin up a virtual machine (e.g. VMWare) or simply use some other computer that you can easily reformat.