There can be a good time & place for a virus. Ever run into a problem individual on the web or chat? Ever desire to even the score with someone you dislike a lot by reformatting their hard drive, reconfiguring their registry, deleting certain .dll or .ini files?
While I agree the current virus in the news is malicious by attacking indiscriminantly any computers it finds, there are others out there that will only attack what computer it was sent to attack and affect nobody else.
Whoever wrote the blaster virus was very clever. It not only forced the infected machine to reboot over & over again, it also flooded the Windows update site so getting the patch from a clean PC was near impossible when at its peak.
The more you read up on viruses & trojans, the more you learn on how to keep your machine safe.
My suggestions? If you have a broadband connection like DSL or cable get a hardware firewall. Software firewalls are not enough and can be bypassed with a little time. The best is to use both.
Dont open any attachments from even friends unless they tell you in advance they are sending you an attachment. ALWAYS keep Windows & any antivirus software updated.
On sensitive data you keep on your computer get a good 128bit blowfish encryption program.
If you use Microsoft Outlook, get a program called Spam Inspector. It will intigrate into Outlook and keep 90% of the spam out of your inbox & it learns as you use it what is & isnt spam.
Want to prevent your MS Outlook from sending mass emails if in case you get infected with a mass mailer virus as an added insurance? Just create a new contact in your address book as:
name: 000_
email address:
[email protected]
Since there is no alert.net and it becomes the first entry in your address book of contacts in Outlook, any program that attacks your address book will try it first. It will bounce back & all other following contacts will remain safe. Outlook will inform you you have a bounced email (which you never sent). Thus, the chain is broken.
Get a free program called Spybot Search & Destroy to remove most spyware off your PC. Spyware is just another variant form of a trojan.
...thats what I heard, not that I know anything LOL
