Viruses and Spyware

I take many calls from customers that have a virus or spyware infection on their computer. One of the keys to understanding how to prevent future infections is to better understand how these rogue programs operate, and to religiously use top-notch anti-virus and anti-spyware software.

In case you're not familiar with the term, Malware is what we in the computer industry use to refer to any software that is malicious or unwanted. There is only one website I will even go to on a computer that doesn't have any anti-malware software installed. That would be Microsoft Update. Keeping current with all the latest Windows security updates is at least as important as having top-notch anti-malware software running on your computer. But I digress....

I used to use one of the several free anti-malware solutions. While it did do a decent job, and in fact did a better job than some of the most common subscription-based solutions, it just wasn't good enough to block infections by the more recent strains of malware. So the bottom line I'm telling you is that if you currently use a free solution, you're basically playing with a loaded gun, and you will get an infection at some point. The latest strains of malware can get you in seconds from any infected website you visit, and believe me there are thousands and thousands of infected websites. And don't just think its the "fringe" websites that get infected. These people go after well known and trusted web sites to host their rogue software simply because they will infect far more computers that way. Also, never, ever click a pop up or button that says something like "Your computer is infected, and you need to click OK to perform a scan to remove malware". What you have if you see something like that is a Trojan virus that is trying to get you to authorize a connection out to the Internet to download some really bad stuff that will turn your computer into a zombie PC, or worse, collect your personal information. You should immediately shut down and restart your computer, then run a full scan before you do anything else.

Malware authors are also now going back to using email to spread their software. Most of you have been aware for years now not to open an email from someone you don't know, but people still fall for this stuff at a high rate. Over 50% of all email is spam, so be careful what you open.

If you're looking for a top-notch product to protect your computer from malware, look no further than one of my business partners, ESET NOD32. Check out my links page here: http://www.regular-guy.net/links.html. For those of you running Norton or McAfee, and wonder why your computer runs slow, and you get infected, its because these two well known products simply are more about marketing and less about substance. While nothing is perfect, NOD32 performs well without becoming a huge drag on your PC, plus provides the best heuristics engine on the market. Heuristics is the ability to correctly identify a malicious program and halt it before it can do harm, even if that malicious program has never been seen before. For those of you running Norton or McAfee that have had an infection in the past, how many times have you had it fail to remove the infection? Quite often I suspect. NOD32 also is better at actually REMOVING the bad stuff for you. While it's not perfect, and won't catch/remove 100% of everything out there, it does a far better job than most.

Keep checking back for my next update. I will discuss the consequences of a bad malware infection, and what you should know about having your computer cleaned from the malware.

-Ron