Threats

The good news is that the Internet has become a resource to enrich all of our lives. Google and Yahoo are at our fingertips to find any information in a flash. We can social network also in an instant, keep in constant touch no matter how far we are from each other through email, download useful software, download music and podcasts, keep up on the news through access to any newpaper around the world, and otherwise pursue your heart’s desire.

The bad news is that the Internet can be dangerous territory. If you never use a computer to log on to the Internet, you don’t have to worry about your computer getting malware that could literally bring it to a stop or slow it down to turtle-speed no matter how good the hardware is.

Spyware and Viruses:

First Step: Know the Enemy
The first step to protecting your computer is to have some idea of what you are fighting. You are fighting malware and you need to know the different types of malware.

One category of malware-(nasty stuff)- are the viruses. Their basically little programs but not for your benefit but to cause damage or some mischief. There are many kinds of viruses and some are worse than others; also some are more wide-spread -and the two factors don’t always correlate. A virus can have a low damage level but be widespread (in the wild) and vice-versa, a virus can have a high damage level but be

very limited in spread. Fortunately, no virus has really had high damage and been wide-spread or it would be the Chernobyl of all viruses.
Side Note: There is a virus called Chernobyl (W95.CIH) which doesn’t affect Windows XP-only Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows Me. It can destroy the entire operating system and you can’t boot to Windows anymore, but it is seldom seen anymore. Only someone with no antivirus software at all could possibly be affected.
Viruses are in 3 general categories: There are general viruses that can infect programs and boot sectors. Then there are viruses called macro viruses that exploit data files from Microsoft office including word processor files, Excel files, Powerpoint and Access files. These types of virus were originally the main viruses.

Then came worms. They could spread across networks and could spread without human help. They mainly arrived in your inbox as attachments at first. Open the attachment, and your computer is infected and these worms could use your email to spread to all of your friends! Worms could also spread through instant messaging and chat or sharing music through peer-to-peer networks. Later, worms got fancier and could open without needing attachments after

arriving in your email. Then, some worms could spread over networks and when you were on the Internet (which is the largest network), through holes in the coding of an operating system. Worms spread so much to computers world-wide, that their names are known to all: SoBig, MyDoom, Melissa, Love Bug, Bugbear, Blaster, and Code Red among many others.
Another nefarious virus is the Trojan or Trojan Horse virus. Just like the famous Trojan Horse of Greek myth, they come in disguise. Trojans can seem to be a useful program at first or tag along with perhaps a free program you download. The Trojans will stay hidden on your machine and can be hard to ferret out. I have seen machines with the usual antivirus on them, but when running another program to detect malware, I’ve found a Trojan missed by the main anti-virus program. Trojan Horse viruses hide away while carrying out their misdeeds such as sending your data out, taking over your computer, and bringing spyware and even more malware to your computer. Trojans can be the means that cyber criminals use to get access to your computer.They’re not good.
Lately, a new type of malware is widely seen, spyware and adware. They usually don’t directly damage your computer but they can pop up ads at you, spy on you and send your data outside. Often companies will add their spyware or adware to a free program you would like to download. They often feel that this is the price you should pay to have the privilege of using their software without paying. The recipient of the adware/spyware usually would not share this viewpoint.
Spyware will often arrive as a conjoined twin with a Trojan or spyware will often open the door and put out a red carpet invitation for Trojan Horse viruses to come to your computer-not a pleasant prospect.
To get a concept of how many viruses, spyware, and adware are out there (and new ones arrive every day so you need to update your antivirus all of the time), take a look at Symantec’s Virus encyclopedia:
http://www.symantec.com/enterprise/security_response/threatexplorer/azlisting.jsp

Defending your computer against malware is very necessary, but, unfortunately, not a no-brainer. You have to give some real consideration to picking the right programs to protect your computer.
A major consideration to remember is that new viruses and spware/adware come out daily. Some believe thousands of new malware come out every month (someone must be keeping an exact count) so you must be constantly vigilant to be sure your anti-virus and anti-spyware programs or software that combines both functions are constantly updated or this software quickly becomes useless. You could mistakenly think you are allright, but anti-virus software or anti-spyware software that is not updated with new definitions regularly might not as well be on your computer.
Each virus is has it’s own signature-like a fingerprint that the antivirus program can use to detect it. To eliminate a virus, you have to detect it first. The antivirus software must look for the individual code to be able to remove the viruses. The antivirus definitions tell the antivirus program what the signatures are of each virus.
It is easy to forget and let your antivirus get outdated and, thus, not very effective. It is a good idea to have automatic updates in this case. Remember that updating signature or definitions with anti-virus or anti-spyware programs is not the same thing as getting a new version or updating the actual software.

Norton products (www.symantec.com) and McAfee antivirus and security products http://www.mcafee.com/us/ are the gold standard for protecting your computer. There are problems involved with these programs, however, in that they can be very demanding on the resources of your computer and can slow down your computer quite a bit and cause freezing especially if you have an older computer. Also, the protection does not come cheap-either for the initial product or the updating of the definitions yearly (renewing the subscription).
   There are alternative products and the best news is that some good quality products are free. You might want to look into:
   >AVG free antivirus: http://free.grisoft.com/doc/5390/lng/us/tpl/v5#avg-anti-virus-free
    >Spybot Search and Destroy: (It removes spyware and adware but doesn’t block it). Contributions are appreciated.
      Download page: http://www.spybot.info/en/download/index.html
   > Lavasoft’s Ad-Aware SE Personal: anti-spyware freeware
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/products/ad-aware_se_personal.php
>Microsoft’s Windows Defender: You must have Windows XP, Service Pack 2 to use this. It will block spyware. Download from Microsoft Download Center-http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/Search.aspx?displaylang=en or use Windows Update.
>Malwarebytes Anti-malware http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php Legitimate and good free program that can remove a lot of malware but it doesn't run in the background. Good as supplement to your regular antivirus program.



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