Important Antivirus information

By far the most popular method for a virus to spread is via email. However there are other methods. To protect yourself from viruses (and worms) there are 3 main tasks that you need to keep under control.

1. Antivirus software needs to be installed and kept up-to-date with the latest virus definitions
2. The latest software updates for both Windows and Office are installed.
3. A personal firewall is important to reject any unwanted traffic from the Internet coming onto the machine.

Antivirus software

Most viruses are designed to mainly spread through a variety of avenues without doing major damage other then collecting personal details about Bank Accounts and passwords. Most viruses have a large amount of "nuisance factor" associated with them but are generally not very destructive. Some viruses have been linked with spammers, so that a spammer may use the compromised machine to send out more spam. Note: There will come a day where viruses become much more malicious.

The latest trend for viruses is to have the ability to send an email pretending to be from someone that they are not. It's a bit like sending a letter to someone but signing it using someone-else's name. Viruses collect the email addresses to use from the infected machine's address book, emails, or from web pages that the computer has visited.

As a result of the virus pretending to come from someone they are not (referred to as "Spoofing") - innocent people are being accused of having been infected with a virus. Often these accusations become a heated debate and the participants often require a fair bit of explanation before they are convinced that the problem is actually elsewhere.

The best line of defence is the use of antivirus software that is kept up-to-date. This means that the software is given the latest possible virus descriptions so that it can defend against the latest possible viruses. These are inexpensive tools that can be setup to keep checking for updates when there is an Internet connection. These tools often scan incoming email as well as any file that is accessed on the local machine to ensure that each file used does not contain a virus.

For those without an antivirus solution then, as a once-off scan to ensure that the machine is not infected, check out Trend’s House-call (instructions) which allows you to scan for viruses using the latest virus information from Trend while you are online. Any virus that it finds it will deal with then and there. Another option for emergencies is Network Associates Stinger (instructions), which is quickly downloadable and good for the latest variants.

Note: these solutions only check the machine when asked and do not provide proper ongoing virus protection.

Suggestion: If these tools find a virus and have cleaned it. Reboot the machine and then repeat the whole process again.

Biz AnyWare is committed to reducing virus activity among its customers and as such provides virus scanning on all of its email mailboxes as standard.

Anyone keeping their email with Biz AnyWare is automatically protected from known viruses in emails before the virus gets to their machine. However, email accounts with other providers are not necessarily protected from known viruses. I.e. Personal Hotmail email accounts are not checked for viruses before the email gets to your machine so these accounts still pose a security threat to organisations. Biz AnyWare still recommends that individuals have their own antivirus protection checking email.

Biz AnyWare customers would be familiar with "virus skeletons" coming through with the attachment of "Replaced Blocked File" or "Replaced Infected file" indicating that there once was either a suspect attachment or a confirmed virus attached to the email. These are harmless and can be deleted. Should a valid attachment get caught up in them then contact Biz AnyWare as soon as possible to organise its retrieval.

Note: Biz AnyWare operated mailing lists are kept well away from address books, this means that the viruses don’t have access to all of the email addresses on the subscription lists.

Software updates

Another line of defence is to make sure that the machines are kept up-to-date with the service packs for both Windows and also Office. With the latest versions of windows, keeping them up-to-date with service packs is easy with the automatic updates tool or Windows Update. Visiting the office update website once a month will make sure that the version of office that is on the machine is up-to-date.

If you are unsure about any of this then consult a professional.

Biz AnyWare is committed to reducing virus activity among its customers and as such provides virus scanning on all of its email mailboxes.

Note: There is an opinion that people should not use the likes of Internet Explorer as their Internet browser and that people should be using a lessor known browser because of the amount of service packs that are required for Internet Explorer. Biz AnyWare is of the opinion that this argument doesn't make much sense because the other browsers haven't had the testing that Internet Explorer has had and continues to have over it's large userbase. This is highlighted by the number of problems that the other lessor known Internet browsers are having recently. At the end of the day it is your choice to change Internet browsers but you will still need to make sure that the latest software is properly installed. For the more paranoid people, just using another browser is probably not enough - Internet Explorer would have to be completely removed from the computer, which reduces the features that your computer would have.

Personal Firewall

A firewall is configured in such a way to block certain network traffic from getting from the Internet to machines. A personal firewall is designed to protect a single machine. This is a must for any individual computer that accesses the Internet. The firewall is primarily designed to stop any network traffic that is not necessary to be sent to or from the Internet.

An example of such a personal firewall is Zone Alarm that is available as a free piece of software from Zone Labs that has options to upgrade to a more feature packed versions. Zone Alarm can be configured so that only certain programs that you want to access the Internet with can access the Internet. Any unknown program trying to get out prompts the user to make a decision whether to allow or deny the program to access the Internet. (Eg. Outlook is used to send and receive email from the Internet so it will need to be allowed to access the Internet. However, a program that you don’t recognize, i.e. called "Machine Nuker", probably shouldn’t be allowed to access the Internet.) Any worm activity that tries to come into your machine from the Internet will automatically be ignored.

In a corporate network environment - a firewall should have already been setup to protect the entire network from the Internet. However they don't stop a virus or a worm once they have got onto a network.

Summary

Keeping these 3 areas of the machine under control and up-to-date will mean that the risk of your machine being infected it greatly reduced. If everyone was to keep these 3 areas under control then the number of spreading viruses would be seriously affected making everyone's computing experience a much more pleasant one.

Current Virus Alerts

Other miscellaneous tools can be found on the Biz AnyWare website.

Check the Microsoft website for some more information.