Ok lets explore the many ways you can pick up virus/trojan/worms & spyware infections on your computer.

But first a brief explanation of exactly what these little nasties are, because trying to feed paracetamol to your PC via the CD ROM will not help at all.

These infections are not the type of infection that we biological entities may encounter, they are in fact small computer programs, designed in most cases, to cause as much inconvenience & mischief as possible.


 

There are TROJANS which as the name implies, can hide on your PC & then when you least expect it, they will steal private data from your computer and send it to someone else not just on another computer a few streets away, but even to a computer the other side of the world ! There are even very destructive VIRUSES / WORMS that upon infecting a PC, will then set about literally deleting your data & destroying the hard drive, so your only repair option in cases like this, is to fit a new hard drive & reload your operating system.

So how does your PC get infected…? Well believe it or not, in 90% of cases it is YOUR FAULT ! Sorry but that is the truth, you see these little programs first need access to your PC, then after getting inadvertantly installed to you PC, they then need to be triggered, although there are now many newer infections, that are self activating and can even have a date set to commence their treachery.

How do they get into your system…? Well there are numerous methods of infection ie;

1. Email attachments. Don’t assume that because the email says it is from your best buddy Joe, Betty or Frank, that it actually is from them. There are many email viruses that on infecting a PC will then propogate itself around the internet by sending emails to all your friends on your contact list, without you even knowing ! The subject line usually has something like “checkout my holday pics” and so you then click on the attachment expecting to see your best buddy sun bathing on a palm covered beach somewhere, but instead you have just got INFECTED. Other email infections are spread by forwarded messages that usually contain either music, pics, video or a MS Powerpoint attachment. PLEASE DO NOT FORWARD EMAILS unless you are 150% sure it is clean & you have done a full virus scan on it.

2. Dodgy download sites, Oh yes your favourite download site can be completely riddled with little nasties, just waiting patiently for the unsuspecting computer bod to download an infected file, whether a MP3, a Video, Software, it doesn’t matter as all are equally susceptable to infection because it is easy to hide a malicious piece of code in amongst a legitimate piece of code.

3. Naughty sites, ie porn, Hahaha yes you will certainly pay the price if this is your thing, these sites are riddled with spyware & viruses. All they have to do is persuade you to click on a photo for a close up, or download a sexy pic to your PC & bingo that’s another successful infection.


4. Finally the last of the common causes of infection are obscure toolbars & websites that are poorly run and unfortunately tend to be laced with spyware & trojans. A list of such sites with be available here shortly, so please check back and take note of the sites you should avoid.