Protecting Yourself From Computer Viruses

There are two things that need to be done when it comes to protecting against computer viruses. The first is simple, be careful what you download, receive and open. The second, install a good virus scanner. These might sound obvious but viruses are still being made as people are still not taking the necessary steps to secure their computer systems.

90% of all virus infections are caused because of user error. Whether the user has downloaded a file from the Internet or opened an e-mail attachment from someone they don’t know, it’s nearly always down to the user. Computer viruses cannot just pick out computers and random and infect them, they require at least some sort of interaction and execution from the user. Unfortunately, we’re not alert all the time. How many times have you had someone e-mail you a file over or transfer a file to you via your Instant Messenger and opened it without a second thought? I know I have and why not? You wouldn’t expect your friend or colleague to be sending you something harmful - but what if they didn’t know about it? The more intelligent, if you can call them that, virus out there distribute themselves using the users own contact lists and appear to be from a legitimate source. The only way to avoid such infection is to assume that everything is a virus and confirm the source before opening.

Of course, the user can only be relied on so much. If we didn’t open any file we ever received we’d be in a sorry state, so we really on applications. In particular, virus scanners. Pick up any virus scanning and protection application from a major brand at your local PC software store and it’ll do the job of protecting your system from 99.9% of the viruses out there currently. Most even protect from user error and will not let you open infected files no matter how much you try to.

Spyware Removal

Unfortunately these days, AdWare and SpyWare in general is becoming a real problem. For the most part, Internet users are learning how to spot potential adware / spyware offenders when viewing / running online applications, but there is still a large chunk of web users worldwide who will download and install anything presented to them. Fortunately, most AdWare and SpyWare is pretty harmless when compared to their malicious counterparts, trojans and viruses. Most AdWare applications will literally just offer you advertisements, divert you to certain websites or manipulate your search results where as spyware applications tend to monitor your online activity more than anything with a view of profiting from your usage habbits. Still, they are a problem and we want to do our best to be rid of them.

Luckily these days, most of the off the shelf virus scanners have built in adware and spyware protection which halts the malware as it’s trying to be installed. There are also numerous third party applications out there that can be purchased and downloaded to specifically tackle the problem of Spyware. These small tools are updated almost daily and are invaluable in the battle against such applications. A popular application (and has been for some time) is the Lavasoft AdAware tool. This application contains a seriously comprehensive list of almost all adware and spyware applications out there as well as a list of websites that are known to offend. If you run this tool, you’re fairly safe and fairly well protected against such issues. There are however a large percentage of web users who have spyware installed and simply don’t know about it as it doesn’t actually do anything other than log.