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The Virus, Hoax Problems: What To Do
No, you are not immune.
by Brett King (September, 2003)
(Note: Brett is the President of kNet Solutions, a
computer consulting company that serves as the webmaster for Creative
Leisure News and a number of other craft-related websites. Brett
is also responsible for re-designing this CLN site.)
Remember the old slogan for a tire company, "Sooner or later,
you'll own General"? Well, sooner or later, you'll be hit with
a computer virus.
You probably already have -- the recent SoBig virus spread faster
than any in history. The recently electricity blackout in the
Northeast? Fifty million people lost power in nine seconds. Computer
viruses can spread almost that fast.
A malicious virus can destroy your hard drive. A
not-quite-so-malicious virus like SoBig fills your email inbox with
messages laden with virus attachments. Both types induce headaches,
take time, cost money, and cause immeasurable anguish.
There are anti-virus programs which are essential to your computer's
health, but they can only help with known viruses. Hackers, who are
the vandals of the 21st century, continue to develop new ones.
Consequently adding a Norton or MaAffee anti-virus program isn't
enough. You must periodically UPDATE it. These hacker/vandals attack
computers before anyone even knows what's going on. It's only after
the fact that companies like Norton and McAfee can fix them.
Plus, there are old viruses that still float around. For example,
recently I got a virus from an old floppy disk that I hadn't used
since I was in college! I don't use floppies too much any more, but
on this occasion I needed one. So I popped it in the computer and
accidentally left it in the drive. Then I rebooted the computer
while the disk was in the drive, and that's when the virus hit! The
computer booted from the floppy, which is normal, and activated the
virus. Four hours later I finally figured out how to fix it. Lucky
for me that the virus wasn't malicious and all was well. Moral of
the story: save yourself the potential headaches and protect your
computer.
Steps to Take.
1. Get a Virus Program and use it. Make sure it scans your
incoming and outgoing email. And set it to do a full system scan at
least once a week. The most popular antivirus programs are from Norton
and McAfee. Get a subscription
for regular virus definition updates so that you'll be sure to
always have protection for the latest viruses. The recent SoBig
virus was discovered on August 18th and Norton had protection in
place on the 19th.
2. Have a backup system in place for your important files. If
you are attacked by a malicious virus that wipes out your hard
drive, or you have a hard drive failure, a backup system will only
put your computer out of commission for a couple of days. The
alternative is losing everything, forever. That could mean years of
work!
3. Pay attention when you hear about viruses or potential
viruses. That doesn't mean act on whatever you hear, but pay
attention. Do some investigation to protect your computer. Go to the
Symantec website (Norton
Antivirus) and search its virus encyclopedia. There are hoaxes that
float around, so before you do anything, check with reliable sources
to find out what you should do or not do.
4. For the reasons listed above, scan floppies or CD's that
you receive from outside parties.
5. Don't open email attachments from people you don't know!
This is how many viruses are spread these days. You open the
attachment and the virus attacks. If there's any doubt, delete the
email! And don't automatically open an attachment just because it is
from someone you know. A friend of yours may inadvertently sending
you a virus. When in doubt, check with the friend first.
Virus Hoaxes.
Periodically, I'll receive a forward email from a friend and the
attachment has very specific instructions about deleting a harmful
virus from your system. It's a hoax! Basically, it tells you to
delete a legit operating system file from your computer. The hoax in
this case is the problem. Following the instructions will cause your
more grief than not using them.
Again, go to the Symantec website and search the virus encyclopedia
to be sure. If you receive one of these, be cautious, investigate --
heck, email me and I'll
check it out for you.
On any of the topics above, if you're not sure, contact your IT
dept. or local computer expert.
(Note: Have any questions or topics you'd like Brett to address in
future columns? Or inquire about his company's computer services?
Contact Brett at 815-877-7975 or email bking@clnonline.com.
To read his earlier advice on spam filters, see article below.)
xxx
