When people hear the words “computer virus”, they get scared and somewhat hysterical. This is understandable, because most people have no idea what a computer virus is, except that it’s bad to have one. The ignorant coverage that virus outbreaks get on the tv news doesn’t help either. Well, knowledge goes a long way toward dispelling fears, so read on to learn about computer viruses.In the simplest terms, a computer virus is a computer program that makes copies of itself and attempts to spread those copies to other computers. A computer that has a virus on it is called “infected”. The process of copying a virus from one computer to another computer is called “infecting” or “spreading”. In the past, viruses would spread via removable disks like floppies. If you put a floppy into an infected computer, the virus would copy itself to that disk, and then when it was inserted into another computer, it would then infect that machine as well. This was an incredibly slow way of doing things, and such infections usually affected a small amount of machines. Today, however, we have the internet, which allows any computer to send and receive data from any other computer that is also connected to the internet. Viruses have taken advantage of this instant sending and receiving of data to spread themselves at a pace much quicker and on a much wider scale than previously possible.

What do viruses do? Well, that depends on the motivation of the virus writer. In the past, notoriety and fame were two of the top goals of virus writers. To achieve those goals, virus writers would write viruses that would be very destructive, very widespread, or both. For example, someone would write a virus that would erase all the data on a hard drive, thus making it very destructive. On the other hand, someone might write a virus that infects a large number of machines, and then on a certain date display a message with the writer’s name. Today, the motives have changed. Destruction and spreading to a lot of machines are no longer the goals. It’s all about money now. Virus writers have turned their focus to stealing information (like credit card info and personal details) and creating “bot-nets”.

The monetary benefit of stealing your information seems fairly obvious. Bot-nets, on the other hand, are much more devious. A bot-net is a large network, or group, of computers that can be used to perform tasks that require a lot of computing power. The use of these bot-nets can be rented for a great deal of money to people such as spammers who use the networks to send out massive amounts of spam emails. The bot-nets can also be used to perform “Denial of Service” attacks, which flood targeted websites with more internet traffic than they can handle, effectively shutting them down. The websites can then be extorted into paying the owner of the bot-net to stop the attack.

Now here’s the million dollar question. How do you protect yourself from these computer viruses? To use an old adage, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The best way to protect yourself is to keep your computer from getting infected to begin with. There are several ways to do this, but the most important part is you, the computer user. Here are some general rules to follow when surfing the internet:

1. Do not open unexpected email attachments. Many viruses spread themselves by attaching an infected file to a legitimate looking email message. When you open the infected attachment, your computer gets infected with the virus. Never open an attachment from someone you don’t know, and verify that attachments from people that you do know are really from them, especially if you aren’t sure why they sent you the email.
2. Be wary of files that you download from the internet. Many sites that offer “free” commercial software, cracks, and serial numbers (used to unlock commercial software for free) contain viruses in the downloads. Also, porn sites are notorious for try to get you to download files that may contain viruses. As a rule of thumb, if you didn’t click a link to start a download, but a download box appears on your screen, don’t download the file.

There are three other things that you can do that will help keep your computer virus free. The first thing is to make sure that you keep your computer’s operating system up to date with program updates and security patches. If you are using Windows XP or Windows 2000, you can check for updates by going to http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com. If you are running Windows Vista, you can check for updates by clicking the Windows Update icon in the programs menu. If you are using an Apple computer, go to the Apple menu and click Software Updates. Make sure you always reboot after installing updates, instead of clicking “Reboot Later”. An update doesn’t help your computer if it doesn’t finish installing.

The second thing is to make sure that you are running a program called a “firewall”. A firewall is a program that blocks incoming connections from the internet, which essentially hides your computer from other computers on the internet. This will prevent infected computers from connecting to your computer and passing the virus on. Fortunately, most of today’s operating systems include decent firewall programs that are already configured. However, if you are running Windows 2000 or an older version of the Mac OS, you will want to look into getting a firewall installed. For you Windows 2000 users, I recommend Comodo Free Firewall.

Your last line of defense is an antivirus program. Antivirus programs monitor every file that is recorded to and read from your hard drive. They compare each file to their “definition set”, which tells the antivirus what the viruses look like. When the antivirus program finds a file that matches a virus described in the definition set, it removes the file and alerts you that a virus was found. Since the antivirus program relies on the definition set to find viruses, it is a good idea to occasionally check your antivirus program to make sure that the definition files are up-to-date. Old definitions cannot protect your from new viruses. Most programs keep themselves updated, but it’s always good to check to make sure everything is working as it should.

I highly advise you to stay away from programs such as Norton Antivirus, Norton Internet Security, McAfee Antivirus, McAfee Security Center, TrendMicro PC-Cillen, and Panda Antivirus. These programs do not work well, and tend to slow the performance of your computer dramatically. They can be costly, as they charge a subscription fee of around $40 a year for definition updates. These programs often come preinstalled on new computers because the antivirus vendors pay the computer manufactures to preload their software. If you computer came preinstalled with one of the antiviruses above, or if one of the hacks at BestBuy conned you into purchasing one, do yourself a favor: uninstall it and install one of the recommended antivirus programs below. Not only will you be getting a better product, your machine will more than likely run faster.

• AVG Antivirus (Free) – It’s free, works well, and doesn’t bog your computer down.
• NOD32
• AntiVir (Free)
  
• Kapersky
• F-Secure

Anyway, that’s all for now. Stay tuned for info on spyware, spotting scams, and avoiding phishers!