Protect
your PC from Viruses
Sooner
or later you WILL receive
an email that contains
a computer virus.
Viruses
can be spread by infected
programs downloaded from
the Internet, or infected
programs or files can
be sent between computers
by networks or by email
attachments.
In general,
you will not get a virus
just by opening or reading
your email.
However,
some viruses can infect
your computer without
any help from you!
Here are
some facts you should
know:
- Some emails have attached
files, in addition
to the message body
- Email attachments
can be good (photos,
music) or bad (a virus).
For most
viruses that arrive in
an email attahcment, they
are activated clicking
on the attachment. This
will either save the file
to your hard disk or activate
the virus immediately.
So how
can you tell the difference
between good attachments
and those that contain
a virus? In some cases,
you can't.
- If you get an email
with an attachment
from someone you don't
know, delete it.
- If you get an email
with an attachment
from a friend, don't
assume it's harmless!
Many viruses spread
by automatically sending
themselves to the
addresses found in
the victim's address
book, and they often
include something
in the message body
that looks like a
personal message from
your friend.Unless
you are very computer
savvy, and you can
tell for sure from
the name of the attached
file that it's not
a virus, then CALL
or EMAIL your friend
and ask if they meant
to send you an attachment.
If they say no, then
obviously you should
delete the message
and let them know
THEY are probably
infected with a virus.
If they say yes, AND
they can explain what
it is (photos of the
family picnic, etc.)
then it should be
safe to open the attachment.
Most new
computers come with an
anti-virus program. They
can be effective in protecting
your computer from Trojan
and other types of viruses,
but only if the virus
definitions are up to
date. |
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An anti-virus program
has two components:
- the program itself, and
- the virus definitions.
Virus scanners (Anti-virus
programs) provide an option for you
to limit the types of files to be
scanned. The default options are usually
sufficient for Windows systems. At
a minimum, you should scan all files
of type .EXE, .ZIP, .DOC and .SCR
for viruses. This takes care of program
executables, screen savers, Word documents,
and compressed zip files.
The virus definitions
are what tell the program how to look
for viruses. Since there are new viruses
that come out on an almost-daily basis,
if your definitions are not updated,
eventually your anti-virus software
will become useless.
You can configure your
anti-virus software to update the
virus definitions as frequently as
you wish (we recommend at least monthly,
if not more frequently) and automatically.
Check the help file or web site for
your particular anti-virus program.
It should be free to update your virus
definitions as long as the program
is current. If you are not running
any anti-virus software at all, we
highly recommend that you obtain and
install one as soon as possible.
There are too many
such viruses out there to seriously
consider being on the Internet without
one for very long.
Finally, you MUST perform
a full scan on your system periodically
(again, at least monthly or more frequently).
Most anti-virus programs
are configured to run in the background
and scan your system files during
startup. You should, however, set
up your anti-virus program to run
a full system scan (of every file
on your hard drive) regularly.
Virus Hoaxes
In addition to dozens
of worms, virus and Trojans, there
are a number of hoaxes as well. These
hoaxes usually arrive in the form
of an email and should be disregarded.
If you receive a warning about a "virus"
via email, be sure to check to see
if it is a hoax first, since some
hoaxes recommend you delete needed
files. Here is a good source: http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.html |
