We
have all heard horror stories about
the
damage a computer virus can do to your computer and many of those
stories are true.
The good news is that you can protect your computer with a
little thought and preparation.
The first thing to be aware of is that there are people out
there that rejoice at the idea of causing as much trouble,
inconvenience and damage as possible. Which means that you need a good
anti virus program. There are the big names that you pay for initially
and think you have the best and they do come pre installed on new
machines. I have noticed that many people didn't realize that they only
got free updates for a limited time. After that you were only protected
up to the time the software expired and any new virus that came out
after that date was a threat. You could subscribe to the updates and
pay the fee of course and stay protected.
There are other programs out there. The one I like and use
myself is AVG
AntiVirus. The software has a free version for personal use
and
one you pay for. The free one has worked very well for me and I update
it
almost daily and even though I haven't purchased a copy I would feel
comfortable with it if I did.
The next thing is understanding
how a virus
is spread! The most
common is via an email attachment: Be aware of what you are opening! If
the email comes from someone you don't know it's a potential threat!
Even if you know the sender be careful, a virus will send itself out
from an infected machine to addresses in the address book on that
machine and it may fake a from email address the same way. Many times
when a virus is sending itself out it will put something in the subject
field that won't be the way the person in the from field would express
themselves, if you know them you should catch that. Bottom line is that
I delete more emails than I read because I'd rather be safe than sorry.
When I do open an attachment I save it to disk first, AVG scans it when
you save it so I know it's virus free.
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Another
common way
for a virus or spy ware to
spread is by piggybacking on other software that you download. If you
just can't resist the latest toolbar, file-sharing gizmo, coupon
dispenser or email enhancer, you may be at risk. Often these and other
downloads come with malware, free of charge. Running a good
anti-spy ware program will reduce your risk.
Next would be when you are on a website and a window pops up
telling you to install and run something. Unless you are at a site like
Microsoft doing updates or something similar the best advice is to
click NO. I have personally been caught like that myself so I KNOW it
happens and believe me it can be a mess.
Next would be sharing your drive on a network. If you don't have
to DON'T. The reason being that you can never speak for someone else
and you don't know if they practice safe computing or not.
Finally there is all that removable media, floppy disks, cd's,
usb hard drives etc. Any file on any one of them could be infected.
Keeping your Anti virus software enabled and updated should protect you
but YOU make the difference.
One other thing that can help protect you is to do an online
scan. The problem there is it takes some time especially on a dial up
connection. The one I like the best is at Trend Micro.
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