Good Antivirus Practices
Greetings, all you virus slayers!
Now that you’ve killed Koobface, you’re probably wondering how you can prevent being struck by viruses in the future. I’ve compiled a list of key things you can do:
- Never trust anyone on the internet. That includes: Email, IM, Web Links, Downloads, etc. Always verify that the person who “sent” you an email (especially if it contains an attatchment) really sent it. Its amazing how easy it is to cloak the “from” part of an email, or to impersonate someone, or to cloak a link.
- Make sure you have an anti-virus program. This will go great lengths to catch the viruses. Top brands include: Norton, McAfee, AVG, and Avast. Run scans at least once a week.
- If you are somewhat savvy, go through the list of Windows processes in Task Manager. If you see one that looks suspicious, Google it. That’s how I discovered tinyproxy in the first place. I try to do this at least once a week. Be careful not to actually end any processes without knowing what you’re doing, as this can cause instability if the process is, in fact, needed.
- Be careful about clicking on ads. It is a good practice to never click on them, as some can take you places you don’t expect. If you use Firefox, an excellent anti-ad addon is “Adblock Plus”. Go to the Mozilla website to get it.
- Speaking of Firefox, my readers will know how high my opinion is of it. It has many great security features. In fact, I even know of people who would have downloaded Koobface, but Firefox warned them, which saved a lot of headache.
I hope you find this information useful. If anyone has any questions or advice about keeping the viruses at bay, feel free to comment on this post.
Categories: Security, Tips and Tricks
Great List Jeff! I do have one question though… Kris had like a whole group of spams that attacked their computer a couple weeks ago and they had never had any problems with spam before they installed Firefox. After Firefox was installed, they had numerous problems and believed they got rid of them all but then a little while later, they all came back. They did un-install Firefox only to see if it had anything to do with that but what would be your advice on this one? To note, I believe Josiah sometimes plays those on-line games, would they have come from one of those sites?
Thanks!
p.s. – I still like Firefox.
by mckinneycattlecompany on Dec 6, 2008 at 11:10 am
I think it depends from where you input your email address.
by bunyk on Feb 1, 2009 at 2:21 am