ZahaviNet

How to Enjoy the Internet and Stay Safe Online Part 3

Continuing our discussion of safety on the internet, we come to the topic of viruses. I’ll also include spyware and any other form of unwanted, troublemaking software that infests your computer.

Whenever a client calls me requesting that I remove a virus from his computer, there is one question that he always asks: “How did this infection get on to my computer?” Well, Virginia, there may not be a Santa, but, there are answers to that question. Here are a few:

E-mail attachments

Your buddy just sent you an email. You know it’s okay because he’s your buddy and he would NEVER do anything malicious. Right? Sometimes your buddy doesn’t even know he sent you a virus ‘cause he doesn’t know his computer is already infected. Email viruses vary, but the main gotchas are attachments, links to bogus websites, and HTML scripts embedded in the email body itself.

So, don’t always be anxious to open that attachment. Check with the sender if you are unsure as to its validity. Links to bogus websites can be pre-screened using a variety of software or by checking the URL with sites that specialize in checking for safe links.
Embedded HTML scripts can be avoided altogether by setting your email software to treat all email as text. Barring that relatively drastic action, check the configuration of your email software for ways to prevent HTML scripts from executing.

Infected websites

Have you ever surfed the web, gotten to a site, and suddenly there’s a popup window in your face just begging for you to click on the Yes/Accept/Get-a-virus-here button? Did you read what they’re trying to sell you (garbage)? Did you understand it (I never do)? Well, do NOT click on it! Just click on the big red X on the window and pray that action doesn’t infect your computer either (Your anti-virus should catch any changes that the infection would try to make to your computer, so you’re probably okay).

Public computers

A few years ago, one of my clients returned from a trip abroad with her digital pictures loaded onto her disk-on-key. She had used a public computer to copy over her pictures from her camera. When she came home and plugged her disk-on-key into her computer, she was immediately alerted to viruses on the disk-on-key and, as we quickly found out, they had also jumped over to and infested her computer. On top of the virus problem, she thought she would never see all the wonderful pictures from her trip. Bummer. In the end, I was able to remove the viruses from her disk-on-key and her computer. Lesson learned. If you use public computers, do NOT plug any USB/Firewire/etc device into it for ANY reason. That would just be asking for trouble.

Not-so-legal software, etc.

So you’ve downloaded some utorrent-bittorrent-isohunt-thepiratebay-omg-will-the-sources-never-end software, pics and/or video. Think all that stuff is safe? Think again. Malware can be hidden is any downloaded software. It can even be hidden in pictures. Downloader beware!

Malware scanner

If you’re running a computer loaded with the Microsoft Windows operating system and you don’t have some kind of anti-malware software installed, stop what you are doing right now and download and install one. Yeah, you. I’m talkin’ to you. Even if you never think you’ll ever get a bad guy on your computer, do it anyway. In the long run, it’ll save you time and money.

Don’t forget to update!

This one is very simple. If Windows alerts you to updates, just say YES! If you’ve installed other applications or plugins that request updates, just say YES! Your anti-virus/anti-spyware software needs an update? Just say YES!

Perfect… Not!

Remember, keep your anti-virus/spyware software up to date, but don’t wholly rely on it. Each program works a bit differently and with the possible hundreds or thousands of viruses being created each day, nothing can catch all the possible infections. No anti-virus is perfect. You, the computer user, must stay vigilant and part of the process.

Next time I’ll tackle one of the most important online topics of the day: cyber bullying. It doesn’t just happen on the schoolyard playground any more. Stay tuned.