I
wrote this a while back... but for some reason it still applies.
If you change the name of the virus it could have been written
today. IF you don't have anti-virus software - please... please...
go get it.
---------------------------
OK,
here's a good one. I'm not too sure if you've seen the latest
virus floating about. It's called KLEZ. It's a nasty and smart
little critter. When you get infected, it sets up its own
little email engine on your computer, pulls email addresses
from your address book, assumes the names of one of your contacts,
and sends out emails trying to infect everyone in your address
book. Nasty huh? Also brilliantly executed in a sick and twisted
way.
Of course it doesn't have to happen like this. Because if
you have antivirus software, you're not going to get infected.
You can take a deep breathe and relax... at least you can
relax about your computer. How many people in your address
book do you think have antivirus software? Would you guess
about 75%? That's about right. Unfortunately the 25% who don't
are dangerous people!
I'm sure they're nice enough, but they're putting your computer
at risk. Most of the people without antivirus software are
new to the internet or infrequent users.
Because
of this, they're dangerous on a completely different level
-- they don't know what a email virus message looks like.
They don't know any better than to click on attachments that
they don't recognize. That means they're more likely than
the regular Joe to get infected, and they're more likely not
to be protected.
Take a minute and open the Windows explorer on your computer.
If you're using a Mac, take a look at the folders on your
computer. Are you using your computer for work? How much are
those files worth to you? If you lost them all 10 minutes
ago, what would you have to do to restore them? Statistically
speaking, you probably don't have them backed up, so you would
have to build them from scratch. What would you lose?? Accounting
Information? Documents? Ideas? Letters from friends? Graphics?
Family pictures?
The fact is you would lose a lot. Pretty brutal isn't it?
Take it one step further, think how guilty you would feel
if your computer caught a virus and one of your friends lost
all their data from the virus your computer sent them.
So what can you do to prevent this from becoming your story?
First thing is to make sure you're not "one of those
people" by having antivirus software installed on your
computer. It's going to set you back about $75 tops. Then,
you're going to pledge to keep that software up to date. All
antivirus software programs use "profiles" to look
for and prevent viruses. If you don't have the latest profiles,
you're succeptable to the latest viruses. Your software will
show you how to do this. Finally, you're going to back up
your data. You're going to go to a computer store and talk
to a sales rep about what the best way is for you to protect
your computer. For some it will be a back up tape, others
will want a CD-writer, and for some, a floppy disk will suffice.
And when you have that product in place, you're going to back
up your data on a regular basis. If you're using it for business,
once a day. For home use, once a week at least. No exceptions.
Talk about fun huh? We hear about these nasty stories of 12
year old hackers who take down Fortune 500 companies and it
turns out that the most dangerous people on the internet are
our friends. Well intentioned, uninformed and ill-equipped
is the wrong set of attributes to have on the internet.
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