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| "The best anti-virus is common sense" | |
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Virus's - |
Malicious code which has primary goal of
spreading and copying itself to as many systems as possible via the
internet/email , home/ business network or by external storage devices
such as USB drives. Contrary to popular belief, virus's may or may not
cause damage to your system.
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| Malware - |
Similar to a Virus, however it's sole purpose in life is to
cause permanent damage to your system, not considered to be a virus
because it does not actively spread/copy itself. Up until very recently
most commercially available anti-virus products did not protect against
Malware attack.
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| Spyware - |
In most cases the basic purpose of spyware is to monitor your activities, often with the aim of learning your websurfing habbits
or personal details to allow
advertising companies to target you with pop-up ads or spam email.
Spyware does not " normally" cause damage to your system.
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How do these programs get onto your system?
In order of importance: |
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Email - |
Attachments in Email when opened can
release a virus into your system, many will then send themselves in your
name via email to ALL of your friends/family.
Don't open anything from anyone if you were not expecting it, if in doubt phone the sender before you open it.
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Pop ad's - |
"you have won XYZ please click
here" You've won nothing, the internet is largely anonymous and your being tricked into a) downloading a virus or b) giving up personal information which will then be sold to advertising companies) "we have detected your computer is
infected, please download this software to remove it" Some pop up's can be very clever and will appear at first glance to be genuine windows programs or even windows itself, check what you have installed and if the popup is a hoax don't click on it. When in doubt use alt-f4 to close the window.
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Messenger |
Internet URL's or "Links" to
webpages apparently sent by friends/family/contacts:
These virus's take control of your messenger account and then use it to distribute itself to all of your contacts. "see my holiday pics here" for example If someone is sending you links via MSN or any messenger service, ask the person what they are sending you before you click on it, these virus's can and do spread very quickly amongst people who do not yet understand the security risks involved in clicking on an apparently innocent link.
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| External Drives and USB memory sticks |
Some clever virus's will scan a host system
for any external drives, when found they will then create or infect what
is known as an "autorun" program on the drive itself (normally a
hidden file), when inserted into a new PC the infected file is run and the
new PC becomes infected with the same virus.
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| Social Networking Sites | Oh yes..... Believe it or not, virus infections are spreading through some of the most popular social networking sites and there's very little these sites can do about it! Games and application's are not always created by the site owner's, be warned and be careful! |
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Once on your system a virus can spread by any and all mean's mentioned above! |
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