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Anti-Virus Software |
| Simply put, a computer virus is a piece of code or software that can do unexpected or even harmful things to your computer. A computer virus can be designed to perform a fairly benign task, such as display a message or play some music, or something more sinister, like take control of your computer, erase your hard drive, or record your keystrokes and send then to a third-party site without your knowledge. Like a real virus that infects people and spreads, so must a computer virus infect computers in order reproduce and survive. So, of course, regardless of their purpose, the best thing to do is avoid viruses altogether. A virus can go by many different names but typically falls into one of three general categories: worm, macro virus, or Trojan. A worm is a virus that can live in your computer's active memory and spread itself to other computers by e-mail (e.g., it could hijack your computer's address book and send itself to everyone listed), over networks, or over the internet. A macro virus is one that is embedded in a document, like a Microsoft Word or Excel document, for example. Once your computer is infected with a macro virus, use of the affected program will result in the virus being attached to any document you create or edit; and, if you e-mail the document, the virus goes with it. A Trojan horse virus is a usually a malicious piece of code pretending to be something cool, like a game or an electronic greeting card. Playing the game or reading the card results in infection. Unlike other viruses, Trojans have no way of replicating. Other forms of malicious software are covered on our Adware and Spyware page. How do you know if your computer is infected with a virus? Since viruses can be designed to do any number of things (some benign) it may be hard to tell if your computer is infected. An obvious sign that your computer has a virus is that it displays unusual messages, plays unexpected music, or shows some odd graphics. Other signs of infection include incredibly long boot times, dramatically low memory or hard drive space, noticeably slower operation, and longer start times when launching programs. There are several things you can do to greatly reduce your chances of getting infected with a computer virus; the first and most important is to get yourself some good anti-virus software. Any decent anti-virus program will at least scan your computer's hard drive and memory for viruses. More advanced programs will automatically check for viruses in anything you download, including e-mail attachments and new software. Make sure your anti-virus software provides regular updates to protect against emerging threats (latest estimates claim over 500 new viruses each month). Your software package may not download updates automatically so it may be up to you to download the updates yourself—something to consider when your shopping for software. We recommend acquiring a software package that actively monitors your system when it's on, including any e-mail you send and receive, and any software you install. In addition to installing and regularly updating anti-virus software, we recommend that you pay special attention to e-mail attachments. Before you open any e-mail attachment, make sure that it came from someone you know and trust. Since many viruses can be transmitted using hijacked address books, we strongly recommend against opening any attachment ending in .com, .doc, .dot, .exe, .pif, .src, or .zip—even it the message including the attachment was sent by someone you trust. Never open e-mail attachments from unknown sources. Have your anti-virus software scan any e-mail attachments for viruses if it does not already do so automatically. Some experts think e-mail attachments are so dangerous, they recommend that you never open them. For more information about protecting yourself from e-mail problems, see our Phishing page. To learn more about viruses and anti-virus software perform an online search or check out the following links:
Anti-Virus Software Review A review site listing ten popular
anti-virus products, including prices and purchasing links. If a link on this page needs to corrected or updated, or if you know of a valuable resource that we should add, please let us know. |
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