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Protection against Viruses and other Nasties
Part 1
In God we trust, all others we virus scan.
Author Unknown
The Malware War
I never have trouble with viruses, spyware and the like. Although I keep antivirus and other anti-malware programs on my Windows computers, I'd lose no sleep if I didn't have them.
I've only had one PC virus cause my PC harm and that was in 2000. I was a victim of a "zero-day" attack. That is, my computer was infected by a brand new virus which hadn't yet been countered by my antivirus program. The virus stopped me from downloading Norton's updates and from visiting their site.
I had to re-install Windows 98 to solve the problem and I lost some valuable data in the process. Since that time I've learned a thing or two — if the same thing happened to me today I'd be back in business in 30 minutes and I almost certainly wouldn't lose any data.
What to do?
The means of avoiding problems caused by malware are not difficult to master. It takes an hour or two to set your computer up initially, but once that's done you'll save a lot of time and worry in the long run.
1. Install anti-virus and anti-spyware software
The most obvious protection is to install anti-malware programs, to update their definitions regularly and to run them often. More about that on the following pages.
2. Create an image
The most effective protection is to create and maintain an up-to-date image of your system so that if your computer becomes infected you can wipe your Windows installation and restore it to health in half an hour by reverting to your backed up image. You can read all about imaging right here.
3. Use a firewall
You should use a firewall. If you use Windows Vista or Windows 7 you have a built-in software firewall. If you have a high speed Internet modem, it should have a hardware firewall built in. Read about firewalls here.
4. Surf safely
- You should not visit the type of Internet sites which invite infection. That includes pornography sites; distributors of pirated software, movies or music; and any other sites that you wouldn't want your grandmother to know you had visited.
- You should never click on any link or on any image in any email you receive unless you're absolutely certain that it's from a legitimate source.
- You should never even open any email unless you are certain of its source.
5. Don't use Internet Explorer as your Internet browser
- Partly because Internet Explorer is a big target and, according to most critics, partly because it's a less secure program than some browsers (Microsoft insist on sticking with ActiveX controls which can be a security hole) I recommend that you use Mozilla Firefox, Opera or Google Chrome for day-to-day browsing.
- Most Windows professionals and power users use Firefox because it has many useful add-ons, but Opera is also excellent and Google's new Chrome is lightweight and lightning fast.
If you haven't already, install antivirus software today!
Next page: Click on the first button below for links to the best antivirus programs and to sites which regularly check their performance.
