Nowadays more and more people are using a computer. A lot of them
use it at their work place, but an increasing number of computer users
have also discovered the need to have a computer at home. At the same
time the number of Internet surfers increased. This is a good thing
because people are realizing the advantages offered by the world of
technology. As soon as they discover this, they start using computers
and the Internet more and more, but at the same time not considering the
threats that are coming in from all sides. They should know that if you
don't protect yourself, nobody will.
These threats are now coming from
everywhere and they are growing in number and complexity. First threats
of this kind were the viruses. At first, viruses were not that harmful.
They were designed to perform a simple task, like flashing a single
message onto the user's computer screen. Also the spread rate was slow,
because not many people were connected to the Internet. But now the
majority of viruses are programs intentionally written to obstruct with,
or harm other programs or computer systems. And they are spreading very
fast.
Many companies and people have had a lot of troubles
because of these viruses. And so the need for antivirus software was
born. At first one very simple antivirus appeared and this was enough.
Now, as the threat is growing antivirus software are becoming a lot more
complex. Some of them have also included a firewall so to better
protect the users. In order to increase the competition, other antivirus
software producers have also come up with a wonderful idea: to offer
free scan online. This was a big help for people that are frequently
using a computer mostly for their personal use, meaning it is not
attached to a network and uses the Internet only from time to time. Now,
they don't have to spend a lot of money to buy antivirus software that
will be used very rarely.
Most of these antivirus programs have to
be bought in order for you to use them at their full capacity. Also you
have the option to test a so called "free trial version". These trial
versions include all or most of the software's features, and are
available to be checked out by the user for a short period of time,
usually 30 days. After these 30 days, the program can no longer be used.
Other antivirus software producers use another method; they offer a
free trial version that you can keep forever. But it is not fully
operational, meaning some of the options of the program cannot be used
as they are not activated. After you have tried a program and you
consider it is fit for your need, then you'll have to buy it to protect
your computer at its full capacity.
Lately, viruses are mostly
spread through e-mails because this is the most common use of the
Internet. Also, e-mail viruses are easier to develop. E-mail viruses
make use of the ability of having macros or scripts implanted in word
documents, spreadsheets, HTML pages, and are programmed to run when the
document is opened. But how does an e-mail virus works? When an e-mail
with an infected document or program is received, the user unknowingly
opens a document/program, which in turn executes a code to open the
e-mail directory and to send a copy of itself as an e-mail attachment to
a certain number of addresses. Some of the recipients of the e-mail
open its attachment and the process repeats itself.
This is where
the antivirus program comes in. This program is set to check all
incoming and outgoing messages and their attachments. If an e-mail is
detected to have a document or program infected with a virus the program
offers several possibilities to deal with the threat: delete the
e-mail, put it in quarantine or try to disinfect it. Most of the times,
these choices are left to the user's decision. It is up to the user to
set the program in such manner to best fit his needs. But not all
viruses are coming by e-mail. A few of them use security errors in the
operating system or your Internet browser to be launched automatically.
But if you keep your antivirus and all the other programs updated, there
will be a small chance of being infected via this route.
Nowadays,
most viruses are spread in the form of e-mail attachments. This is
because some of the worst recent viruses relay on recipients that throw
away common sense and launch a deadly e-mail attachment. Commonly the
attachments are with extensions that include .bat, .com, .exe, .pif,
.scr, and .vbs. Sometimes to avoid the filters of antivirus software,
virus creators enclose their malicious code in a .zip or .rar archive
file. The file might even have a password to full antivirus programs
that scan inside archives. And obviously, the password is included in
the message as an image for the convenience of the naive user. As a
simple but reliable rule, you should never open an attachment that you
didn't expect to receive, even if it came from someone you know. Also,
make sure your e-mail software is configured so it will not
automatically open attachments.
Another common way of spreading
viruses is file sharing. Many viruses spread themselves throughout open
network shares. You can protect your computer not sharing files or
directories over the network. But if you don't have a choice and you
have to share your files, you are still able to reduce the risk of being
infected by installing antivirus software and keeping it updated. Other
ways to become infected with viruses are downloading files or software
from the Internet, instant messaging or even web pages.
If the
file you are downloading or the computer you are downloading it from is
infected with a virus, there is a big chance that your computer will
also become infected with the virus. As for the instant messaging, the
major risk comes from accepting files from other users on the network.
This risk can be minimized by configuring your antivirus software to
scan all incoming files and also configure your other programs not to
automatically accept files, and not to automatically execute the files
you accept. Certain viruses are known to infect web servers. If you
visit a website from an infected server, your computer could be infected
with the same virus, but this is a very rare method of infection.
There
are many different threats that are targeting the computers. Although
they are very different, all of them are popularly called viruses. A
virus by definition is a self-replicating file, not considering whether
it is malicious or not. Another type of the so called viruses are worms;
they circulate mainly through e-mail but also spread through a network.
A worm is aware he is located in a network and uses it for replicating
itself. Trojan horses (or trojans) are mostly used to insert some remote
tools into a system in order to give the attacker free access to that
system, without the user's knowledge. Most Trojan horses cannot
replicate automatically.
With the increased number of Internet
users, the existing threats are also raising as now there are many more
computers to attack and more people that don't know to stay away from
these threats. But the antivirus software producers are making it easier
for us. There is a lot of antivirus software which cover a lot of
threats. All we have to do is install one.
Mike Ber is the owner of the Canadian Domain Name Portal called
http://www.Every.ca
He is also a contributing author to Canadian Computer Magazine
[http://www.computermagazine.ca] and [http://www.developer.ca] website.
Article Source:
http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Mike_Ber/8857
antivirus, software, security, anti virus, firewall, personal security, spyware
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