Gregory Benford is an American science fiction author and astrophysicist who is professor emeritus at the department of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Irvine. He is a contributing editor of Reason magazine.

A computer virus is a type of malware that, when executed, replicates itself by modifying other computer programs and inserting its own code into those programs. If this replication succeeds, the affected areas are then said to be "infected" with a computer virus, a metaphor derived from biological viruses.