Computer viruses are malicious programs written by people with nothing better to do than ruin people's days! Viruses typically arrive over the internet or through e-mail and attack an unsuspecting person's computer. Usually you will have no idea that your computer is infected with a computer virus until it makes its move.
Viruses are capable of doing anything to or with your computer. A lot of them automatically send e-mails to people in your address book to spread themselves to other computers. Some of them can erase files off your computer. Some of them can even render your computer completely wiped, all your data is gone.
However all is not lost. There are precautions you can take to protect yourselves from them. The very first thing you should do is buy a top quality virus scanner, and keep it updated. We recommend McAfee VirusScan, another good one is Norton AntiVirus. Try to avoid anything free, chances are it doesn't work very well.
New viruses are created daily, so it's important to update your virus scanner at least every month, but we recommend every two weeks. In our office, we update our scanners every single week. It's easy and free to do. With so many new viruses coming out all the time, a virus scanner that doesn't get updated becomes useless very quickly.
With a good virus scanner in place, you should be safe from most viruses, but there are some extra precautions you can take.
| Securing Outlook Express |
| Recognizing suspicious e-mails |
| Programs from the internet |
| Current Threats |
| Hoaxes |