Viruses, Trojans and Worms, Oh My!
Virus
If you have never had an experience with your computer getting a virus, Trojan or worm, you are one of the luckiest pc users out there; you are extremely careful or brand new to using the Internet.
Practice good sense to avoid these evils. Do Not Open Attachments! This is rule number one! Some types of attachments are generally safe to open, but virus writers are sneaky and getting sneakier all the time. They can disguise an attachment to make you think it is safe. Always save attachments to disk & scan with a virus scanner before opening. If you get an email from someone with an attachment, email him or her back to see if they intentionally sent it. If not, delete it unopened.
Everyday it seems there is a new virus waiting to attack our computers. Because of this, some people who think they are funny start sending out emails that are virus hoaxes. These emails usually have something like 'Tell everyone you know' and warnings like 'It will delete everything on your C drive'. Before you forward this type of email, check it for Hoaxes. One of the most famous of these virus hoaxes is call the 'jdbgmgr.exe' hoax. It tells you to search your hard drive for this file & delete it. Because for some reason Microsoft gave this file a cute little icon, (see side panel) people believe this hoax. This file is NOT a virus, it is part of Windows. Don't delete it!
Be sure to check the Windows Update site on a regular basis. Download & install the security patches.
One of the most important things you can do to prevent getting one or more of these nasties is get a good virus checker and keep it updated. Keeping it updated doesn’t mean once a month, but at the very least weekly. Get a program that will scan all incoming email.
Even if you update every day, it doesn’t guarantee your pc won’t get infected. It usually takes a few days after a new virus shows up before the anti-virus companies have detection in place to catch it.
Besides getting an unwelcome addition to you computer in an email, there are other ways for your pc to get infected. If you download program files you may also get a 'vermin' on your computer. If you do download a program, make sure it is from one of the better know download sites, such as ZDNET, CNET or a similar site. Another way people get virus is by downloading music files. Virus can 'piggy back' on these downloads.
I have only had one experience of getting a virus. I never did know exactly where I got it, but it was a very unpleasant episode. This led to learning how to reformat my drive & re-install everything. Since I did not have backups of a lot of things I lost a lot of data. This taught me another valuable lesson, make backups! (See cartoon on the side panel!)
- What is a Virus?
- A Very Good Free Virus Scanner Highly recommended!
- Avast This anti-virus scanner comes highly recommended by lots of folks, and it also has a free version.
- AntiVir® Personal Edition Another free virus scanner. I've been hearing really good things about this one!
- eTrust Virus Scanner, firewall and other security tools, good price!
- My personal favorite virus scanner NOD32.It scans for both virus and spyware. It has a very light foot print (doesn't hog system resources) and updates several times a day. NOD32 isn't free, though.
- Now you can get a free virus scanner and a firewall at a reduced price from Computer Associates, EZ Armor. Free updates for one whole year!
- How Viruses Work
- How to stop viruses? Build a 'killer bot'
- Is your virus program up to date? Find out by going to Hackfix Product Updates.
Trojans
The original Trojan horse is the stuff of legends. Legend has it that the Greeks built a wooden horse with a hollow insides that held a few Greek soldiers. The horse was delivered to the gates of Troy and the Trojan horse was pulled into the city due to being convinced it was a peace offering by the Greeks. That night the Trojans celebrated and afterwards fell into a drunken stupor. The Greeks hidden in the hollow belly of the horse crept out, killed the Trojan sentries and opened the gates of Troy. The Greek army swept in and killed all of the people of Troy.
Today there are nasty little programs that sneak onto your computer by various ways and 'open the doors' to your computer to the originators of these 'Trojans'. Once they have access to your computer, they can do pretty much what they want. They can steal confidential data, credit card information, just what ever they want. Even worse, if possible, they can use your computer to send out SPAM, or send out denial of service attacks. This could be traced to your computer & cause you to be criminally charged.
Trojans can come into your computer several ways. You could get one attached to a seemingly harmless attachment or by downloading a file.
There is a trojan that just redirects your search if you are using Google. The original page that redirected users has been closed down, but the redirection still happens. Only now the user gets 'Page not found'. Read about this trojan, QHosts, here. There is more on this at Network Associates' site.
- A really good site for Hosts is this page on the mvp.org site
- a-squared a² Free is freeware! You can download and use it completely for free.
- Anti-Trojan Network
- Detecting and Removing Trojan Horses
