How to avoid virus or spyware infection on Windows PC
New viruses, spyware and worms are emerging every day looking their way into your Windows PC. Windows is the most popular operating system used today, thus most virus producers focus on that system. If you're on Windows, be aware - you are probably being targeted by malicious people as you are reading this.
This guide shows you, however, how to keep those critters off your Windows computer. Just follow the precaution steps listed below and you are highly likely to avoid any infection at all:
- Beware of the email. Email messages are the most common way of getting a virus. Most of the time, you are safe to open emails, but remember to never, ever click any link in that message, no matter how much tempting it may look like. You may only click links in messages that you've verified are 100% from genuine sources.
You also want to check if the URL leads you where it says: hover your mouse over the link and the status bar will show you the actual URL address you are going to visit if you click that link. If the link isn't consistent with the URL, be assured you are being scammed.
- Sometimes while you work, a strange pop-up window may come up on the screen informing you that a virus has been found on your system and you need to click it to resolve the problem. Don't even think about doing it. Crackers and cybercriminals have found ways to display such messages remotely on poorly secured Windows systems and they simply want to scam you into doing something evil to your computer. Clicking that window may result in deleting all your disk files or installing highly dangerous spyware that may be used to track your online activity or to turn your computer into a zombie (which may be used to conduct online crime, such as Massive Denial of Service Attacks).
Mozilla Thunderbird: Thunderbird uses clean design and self-explanatory menus.MS Outlook and Outlook Express uses need to be more cautious about incoming messages. MS Outlook is more prone to viruses and worms than other e-mail programs, unless you have truly efficient antivirus, that scans all incoming and outgoing messages. If you're not necessarily a big fan of Outlook, we encourage you to use Mozilla Thunderbird or other email client.
- Today every Internet user must have an anti-virus programme installed. I can't stress it enough, but it's really, really a must if you are connecting to the Internet. Most free antivirus programmes should be OK, but to ensure the highest level of protection, you should consider buying commercial anti-virus software such as Norton 360, Norton Internet Security or other.
Commercial software is often well-maintained and virus database is updated every day (or even every couple of minutes), so that your protection will be pretty up-to-date. Most of these programs also contain anti-spyware, anti-adware, firewall, anti-worm, anti-trojan and other security features. Our software section has more details about the most popular Internet security software applications available.
- Be careful when dealing with instant messaging. Instant messengers are often used by criminals to send spam, and scam messages that can also contain viruses. Remember to never open any file, may it be sound, video, picture or text, if the message they are in is not from your buddy.
Some documents, including video files, can be really dangerous. Crackers have already discovered ways to smuggle viruses using video files, so be careful before opening any of these.
- Don't trust any CDs, DVDs or memory sticks somebody gave you. Make sure your virus auto-scanning for removable media is on, before putting one of these into your drive or USB slot. Also make sure the Windows autorun facility is switched off - some evil people use autorun to execute malicious code as soon as you insert the CD into your drive.
- Don't download any files from any dubious website. If you are suspecting the site you are visiting may not be 100% legitimate or you are visiting a site that is not well-known to be safe, refrain from downloading any software. Don't download any documents, may it be executable file, Word file or any other file. All of them may be a virus.
- Make sure your Windows update feature is switched on. Microsoft periodically issues important security updates for your Windows operating system that may save you. Really.
- Consider dropping Microsoft's Internet Explorer as your favourite Web browser. Most Web exploits, are written with IE in mind, because it's most popular.
Mozilla Firefox 3: Firefox is growing on popularity because its portability, security and extensive plugin collection Other less popular browsers such as Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera or Safari are considered to be more safe, mostly because they are not so widespread and crackers don't bother finding security flaws in them.
- Some websites may contain malicious code written in JavaScript that is executed when you hit that website. No other action is required from you, just visit the website and your computer is infected. To protect you from this, your Internet browser security settings should be set to the maximum possible. If you're paranoid about Internet security, you may want to disable JavaScript at all, but beware that this may break functionality of some sites.
- If you have some files, you wish to open, but you're not certain about their security status, always use Sandbox to view them. Sandbox separates your actual Windows environment from the file making it virtually impossible to infect your system, even if it contains malicious code.
- Track security news, and bulletins, and visit www.securitybay.co.uk regularly for virus updates.
And last, but not least: always use common sense when visiting websites (or doing any other thing in your life). If you suspect something bad is going on, close the browser. If you feel a website may harm your PC, navigate away and block it.
Happy Web browsing!
