They seem to keep coming up with more innovative ways to infect your computer.  I mentioned the new type of viruses a few weeks ago, but didn’t go into ways to avoid letting the problem multiply.  Here are some guidelines that will hopefully help you avoid serious problems.

If you have a good anti-virus and it is up-to-date:

When it notifies you that a virus is trying to infect your system, first make sure that the program you own is the one notifying you of the problem.  Many of the new viruses (the one I have seen the most lately calls itself “Anti-Virus 2009″) gain entrance by trying to fool you into allowing them to install in spite of your anti-virus.  If it is not your program, do not respond to it.  Just turn off your computer.  When you turn it back on, if the notice comes up again - call your computer professional.  Otherwise, run a full scan of your system with the anti-virus program you know is legitimate.

Once you know you are using the real program, if it finds a virus or viruses, follow the prompts to remove it.  Most of the programs will give you the choice of “healing,” “removing,” or “moving to vault.”  Try each option until you find one that will get it out of your system.  If you still can’t remove it, you can either find out which file it is attached to and delete that file (somewhat dangerous if that file is important to your computer), or call a professional to remove it for you.

If you don’t have a good anti-virus program or if it is not updated:

You may be in trouble.  Installing an anti-virus program after you are already infected will remove 90%+ of the viruses out there, but the newer ones compromise the new anti-virus programs when you install them.  If this happens the only way to get rid of the virus is to reformat your drive and lose everything or have a professional remove your hard drive, install it in a system that is already running a good anti-virus to kill the viruses, then re-install your hard drive in your system and try to repair any damage the virus has done.  It’s complicated, but if you have important files, documents, pictures, etc., it may be the only way to salvage them from a damaged system.

I am often asked why people create viruses.  Most just do it to see if they can - for the thrill and bragging rights.  Some actually do it for pay from corporate and governmental agencies trying to infect specific targets.  In any case, most of us in the industry would love to see “necktie” parties re-instituted for this type of criminal.  It is estimated that billions of dollars in productivity and repair costs are lost each year from virus infections. 

A recent comparison lists Kaspersky and NOD as the best anti-virus programs you can buy and AVG as the best free one.  There are other good ones as well.  Just remember, a little homework done now can save you a lot later.  As always, keep backups of anything important, stay safe and happy computing.

Shaun McCausland has been in the computer industry for 27 years (locally with Musicomp & Bits ‘N’ Bytes) and currently does in-home and on-site computer consultation, service, training and repair. If you have questions, you can reach him at 668-7118.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 at 4:14 pm and is filed under Shaun McCausland. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.