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Most people are conscious of the proliferation of viruses, bugs, trojans, worms, spyware and other malicious malware on the Internet, but millions of people, including experienced surfers get hit each day. How can that happen, you may ask.
It so happens that, sometimes, people forget to set automatic updates of the virus database, sometimes the antivirus software is not set up properly and sometimes it just gets switched off by accident or by software.
It is not extraordinary for automatic antivirus software updates to get switched off by accident or design. It has happened to me twice this year already. Luckily, Windows 7 warned me and I took notice of that admonition and, most importantly, I fixed the problem.
This is the most important point. If your computer warns you about something, particularly regarding security, do not put off doing something about it. In fact, drop what you are doing and correct the issue immediately.
If you leave you computer exposed to assault by malevolent software, you will suffer. It is no good imagining that you are safe because you do not perform online banking or because you do not have sensitive information on your computer, because you have.
Your contacts and colleagues entrusted you with their email addresses and names on the understanding that you protect their privacy.
Some malware only looks for the addresses in your email client software. Then it will harvest those details and spam your friends to distraction. Two of my friends let that happen this year and the only solution for both of them was to acquire a new email address and reformat their hard drive.
For example, I was receiving financial advice from my next door neighbour's ten-year old kid. It was spam coming from Eastern Europe but it was prepared as if it came from him. He had been hacked and his address book had been copied to spammers. I had hundreds of junk email for months.
And do not think that you can merely create a filter to send it to the bin. You cannot, because they forge the email headers so that it seems to your anti spam software that every email comes from a new address, the result of which is that your spam filter does not recognise it as spam.
This is serious enough, but it can become much worse. Spyware can sit on your computer reading the keys that you press and sending the data back to the boss so that they can spam you on what you recently typed.
Does that sound familiar? Today you send email to a friend saying that you are going to redecorate and the next day you receive unsolicited email advertising on paint and wallpaper.
If all this sounds familiar, then you have to take action. Enter 'free anti virus software' into a search engine and set it up properly. If you have AV software already, check the settings. You need to enable automatic updates.
If you leave your computer always switched on that is all you have to do, but if you switch it off whilst not in use, set the updates to take place when you switch it on.
It so happens that, sometimes, people forget to set automatic updates of the virus database, sometimes the antivirus software is not set up properly and sometimes it just gets switched off by accident or by software.
It is not extraordinary for automatic antivirus software updates to get switched off by accident or design. It has happened to me twice this year already. Luckily, Windows 7 warned me and I took notice of that admonition and, most importantly, I fixed the problem.
This is the most important point. If your computer warns you about something, particularly regarding security, do not put off doing something about it. In fact, drop what you are doing and correct the issue immediately.
If you leave you computer exposed to assault by malevolent software, you will suffer. It is no good imagining that you are safe because you do not perform online banking or because you do not have sensitive information on your computer, because you have.
Your contacts and colleagues entrusted you with their email addresses and names on the understanding that you protect their privacy.
Some malware only looks for the addresses in your email client software. Then it will harvest those details and spam your friends to distraction. Two of my friends let that happen this year and the only solution for both of them was to acquire a new email address and reformat their hard drive.
For example, I was receiving financial advice from my next door neighbour's ten-year old kid. It was spam coming from Eastern Europe but it was prepared as if it came from him. He had been hacked and his address book had been copied to spammers. I had hundreds of junk email for months.
And do not think that you can merely create a filter to send it to the bin. You cannot, because they forge the email headers so that it seems to your anti spam software that every email comes from a new address, the result of which is that your spam filter does not recognise it as spam.
This is serious enough, but it can become much worse. Spyware can sit on your computer reading the keys that you press and sending the data back to the boss so that they can spam you on what you recently typed.
Does that sound familiar? Today you send email to a friend saying that you are going to redecorate and the next day you receive unsolicited email advertising on paint and wallpaper.
If all this sounds familiar, then you have to take action. Enter 'free anti virus software' into a search engine and set it up properly. If you have AV software already, check the settings. You need to enable automatic updates.
If you leave your computer always switched on that is all you have to do, but if you switch it off whilst not in use, set the updates to take place when you switch it on.
About the Author:
Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with researching the best virus protection software. If you have an interest in such software, please go over to our website now at Computer Antivirus Software
