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| Protect your Data from VirusesViruses are becoming more brutal as time goes by, and they multiply faster than a room full of schoolchildren. According to Norman’s anti-virus site, several hundred viruses are discovered each month! You may be wondering how could you end up with one of these creatures? Some ways are by sharing files on diskette, surfing on the Internet, or from an email message or attachment. Other types spread by embedding themselves into document files. Even a CD copied by a friend could contain one. Most commercially released CD’s will be clean, although I can name a few rare occasions where publicly released software came packaged along with a virus. There are over 50,000 of them known to date. These include variants of some types, and amazingly there are those that mutate as they jump from computer to computer. There are even Trojan horses that are not actually viruses, but they can give someone remote control of your system. How can you keep these nasties from invading your computer? Most motherboards have some built in protection in the bios, but it only helps against certain types. If you are on the Internet a lot, a better form of protection is to use a firewall. McAfee.com offers a personal firewall, which they say, “Protects you from all known hacks, nukes, Trojans, and DOS attacks by monitoring all network activity. Nothing enters or leaves your system without your permission.” Other firewalls are available at most shareware or commercial anti-virus sites. A more common solution is installing memory-resident scanning software on your computer. Symantec is the company behind Norton, Symantec, and Central Point anti-virus software. They are one of the oldest fighters of the anti-virus wars. Their Norton package is certified to work with Windows 95/98 and ME software. They also offer personal firewall and Internet security software. Trialware versions are available at Symantec.com. InoculateIT Personal Edition is a totally free virus protection package. Rocketdownload.com states, “This comprehensive PC security tool is designed to detect and delete viruses from your system. It also protects you from macro viruses, which commonly affect documents and databases for Office 95, 98 and 2000. In addition to e-mail attachments, InoculateIT also detects viruses from malicious web sites. It automatically checks memory and the boot sector as you start your computer. The program can scan your computer for infected files on-demand or at user-defined intervals. [It also] operates in the background, scanning files as they're opened and saved to disk.“ InoculateIT is a complete and impressive solution. Updates are also free, just fill out a free registration form to download them. You can find it at rocketdownload.com. VirusScan is a popular shareware program. It detects not only common viruses, but also infected Active X and Java applets that you may unknowingly download. It incorporates an e-mail sniffer that will scan e-mail attachments, seek and destroy macro viruses and repair files. Thunderbyte, one of the most popular shareware programs, has been purchased by Norman. They recommend you upgrade to their current version of Norman Virus Control. They are one of the few companies that still offer a DOS based scanner. This can be invaluable if your system will not boot into Windows. Automatic updates are available via the Internet for their Windows 95/98 and NT/2000 versions. A new way to scan your drive is to use an online scanning service. You only need Internet access to scan your system (no more hunting for a clean boot disk). Sign up at the provider’s site, run the online scanner, and it will check all your files from remote! The data files online are always the newest available, as the companies update their servers frequently. McAffee.com offers one of the best complete packages I’ve seen at a decent price. They also offer protection for handheld devices. This is the best idea I’ve seen since plastic plumbing pipe was invented. What can you do to help stop viruses before they invade your system? Don’t download hacked software or download from questionable sites. Scan any removable media entering your system from an external source. Don’t open email from anyone you don’t know, and if you do know them, don’t open attachments you’re not expecting. Update your virus protection software frequently. No software can stop all viruses and in some cases your data may be irretrievable. As with any software you purchase, some anti-virus programs may conflict with other things in your system. If one program doesn’t work for you, try something different. Prevention, caution, and frequent backups are your best plan to fight back against computer viruses. |
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