Grandma Betty's Prescription for Avoiding Computer Viruses

By: Grandma Betty Fox

Computer viruses can be deadly to your computer. They come in many flavors and strengths. In fact, there are over 40,000 computer viruses, which have been identified and rendered harmless by Anti Virus Programs. Some very savvy programmers write these viruses so it is an intense battle between the virus authors and the people who write the vaccines.

Each week on average 26 new viruses are reported to the CERT Coordination Center (www.cert.org). The new viruses are classified according to their potential destructiveness from mere nuisances all the way to extremely destructive viruses. The Anti Virus vendors use this information to prioritize their antidote resources.

Let's take a look at two recently publicized viruses. The Melissa Virus and The Chernobyl Virus each had a different means of disrupting computer systems worldwide. Between the two viruses hundreds of thousands of systems were affected – maybe even yours.

The Melissa virus was spread through the Internet and inflicted Windows based computer systems. It exposed a known security hole in Microsoft Office using a relatively simple macro program. This type of macro is well within the capabilities of even a novice programmer – scary. The virus was distributed by email hidden in an attached file. The subject line read – Important Message – so most people opened the file, which activated it. The virus then opened an email program called Microsoft Outlook and send messages to the first fifty entries in the Outlook Address Book. This caused massive congestion on the Internet and on corporate computer systems. In some cases corporations had to shut down their computer networks for up to two days to clean up the mess. Only days after the Melissa virus struck copycat viruses were already being identified. Unfortunately, this type of virus is easy to write and may be even easier with the release of Windows 2000.

The other recently publicized virus was the Chernobyl (sometimes called the CIH) virus. It was timed to activate on April 26th – the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown. It was an especially destructive virus. In Grandma's estimation upwards of one million systems may have been destroyed, although many people and businesses will not admit to it. This virus scrambled all of the information on a computers hard drive. The drive had to be reformatted and the data was lost. If the user did not have a backup, as most people do not, they were in big trouble. Financial data, business data, personal data  was lost in some cases. The other devastating fact about this virus was that it could destroy hardware in addition to software. In some cases it 'flashed the bios' on the motherboard of the computer. In that case the user often had to buy a new motherboard or a new computer.

Viruses will become even deadlier and more destructive in the years to come as we depend more and more on being connected to the Internet. Here is Grandma's recipe to help minimize the possibility of your computer becoming infected:

• Install a good commercial Anti Virus Program. Norton Anti Virus and McAffee VirusScan are two good ones and there are many others. It is critical that whichever program you purchase that you keep it uptodate. If a new virus is released and your Anti Virus program has not been updated your system will become infected. Often vendors distribute updates from their web sites. Make sure you learn how to take advantage of these updates.
• Never detached a file attached to email unless you personally know from whom it came . Also, virus scan the attached file, as the sending party might not be aware it contains a virus.
• Never use a floppy disk unless you virus check it first. Failing to do this is an easy way to get a virus.
• Never download Active X programs from web site. These can contain programs which can spread viruses or can gather information from your hard drive and can send confidential information to people you never intended it for.
• If you have children using your computer be aware of what they are doing. Grandma is AMAZED at what kids do on the computer without their parents' knowledge. I may even make this the subject of an upcoming article.
• I hope this article raises your awareness of the types of viruses, which can affect you and your computer.